Business Idea – Cart Wash February 16, 2023

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Years ago I read an article that mentioned some of the germiest places one encounters regularly. Surprisingly, bathrooms weren’t in their top ten, while the list included other things like pens free for public use and the handles of shopping carts. Ewwwww. Even if you aren’t a germaphobe, those shopping carts and baskets gets very grody very quickly. Double ewwwww.

So, this idea would be for a cart washing service!

It would be like a mobile car wash for shopping carts – a semi truck where employees (of the service company, not the store employees, that’s why the carts never get washed because the store employees never get a chance to), put the cart on a conveyer track like car washes have and it goes through the truck to get a good scrub.

I’m thinking the truck could come on a regular basis, probably weekly. If the carts need it more often, the store can call. Charge enough so the store can get unlimited washes so the carts get washed when they need instead of when the store finally decides to up their game (which would be very rare). But if you only provide the service when the store calls then they’ll never get around to doing so. In other words, a combination of regular washes and an unlimited subscription.

Some added services could include repairs, oiling wheels, and even replacing the handle for marketing. In fact, the service could offer cart rentals (instead of buying hundreds of carts), and even providing a discount if the store allows local advertising attached to their carts.

Coinage Games February 15, 2023

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Let’s just start by saying I blame my coin obsession on my business interest. Or, maybe it’s the other way around? The fact is, in addition to my plethora of hobbies and interests I enjoy stacking, counting, and sorting coins. Not to mention saving coins and collecting banks.

I have a glass gallon apple cider jug, a 5 gallon water cooler bottle (plastic thankfully), a paint can with a slit cut in the lid, one that is shaped like a house, one that looks like a panda bear, and even a cute little safe with a fake combination lock (which is really good since I don’t know how to work combination locks). Plus, I like to design banks on occasion, and I have a toy trailer I want to convert to a bank to save up for a dream travel trailer.

With all that said, my panda bank was getting very full and very heavy. Time for some coinage fun! i.e. that’s what I’ve been doing almost all day. Sorting out the state and national park coins since I’m saving several for posterity, casually checking for coins that are worth more than their face value (like double-stamped coins), and stacking them in nice coin pyramids for counting. Yeah, I don’t know when I’ll ever grow up. 😉

One last note: I wish I had a cash-based side business. All this direct-deposit stuff and digital banking doesn’t feel real to me. Hopefully my efforts to sell at the farmer’s market will pan out.

Too Many Games February 13, 2023

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While I have too many talents, I also have too many vices and distractions. Not the usual vices that drain one’s wallet and decency (drugs, alcohol, hanky panky, etc.), but those that seem a little more innocent – games, TV, crafts, business ideas. Ok, they can drain one’s wallet too. The fact is, when your phone reports that you average 9 hours a day playing games, and YouTube is constantly playing on the laptop, there’s a problem.

For several months my sister has been offering to set a lock/limiter on my phone. For months I thought I could take care of it myself. All I needed was determination and discipline after all, right? You can probably guess where this is going. Finally she set me a challenge – for every 15 minutes I reduced my daily time on my phone for an entire week, I’d get a point towards a surprise.

Sure! I thought. This kind of reward system has worked before when I was trying to get into the habit of exercising. (Which I have since dropped, but that’s another topic.) I just had to turn my attention to other things and I’d be fine, right? Nope. Almost a month later and not only did I not improve, I got worse.

Cue the sister again! The last time I visited, she once again offered to put the limiter on my phone. This time I had to admit to myself that getting fired up in front of the mirror wasn’t good enough. This time I accepted. This time it actually worked! I’ve hardly touched my phone since.

Sure, I could probably entertain myself with other kinds of apps, but Facebook and Pinterest have gotten rather annoying lately (I may love ideas, but too many it’s very frustrating that I can’t do them all). So, I’ve been avoiding the phone instead, and WOW have I gotten a ton done! The first day I did 5 hours of writing (which I will probably post here at some point), the next day was shopping and nursing a major headache (which I normally would have waited through with my face in a game), and the day after that was my weekly rest day with my head in YouTube or socializing.

Now all I have to do is direct all this time and energy into my writing, listen to light novels instead of watching anime, and I should be golden, right? Right?!

Business Idea – Beast-kin Cafe February 10, 2023

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So, I’ve recently starting drooling on what are known as fursuits. They are costumes that turn you into an animal, like a cat, sheep, or even a dragon. They are usually really cute (at least in my opinion).

While I was browsing Pinterest and filling my new board with fursuits, I noticed a couple fursuit costumes wearing really cute dresses, kind of like Lolita (aka, little girl Victorian-inspired fashion, often featuring cute costumes and floofy skirts). That goes well with the story I’m writing about a humanoid cat who opens a maid cafe. So, wouldn’t it be super cute to have a maid cafe where the maids are cute critters?

EEEEEE! I can just imagine a kitty in a floofy skirt serving my sandwiches, and a pastel dragon dancing on stage and blowing kisses. (Lol. I’m a total Kawaii nerd. ;P)

If I were to do a business like this:

• Find a faux fur that doesn’t shed!!!!!
• None of those enormous paws that are common in the fursuit community. Just gloves. In fact, keep all the parts of the costume to a modest size so it doesn’t get in the way.
• I’d have each server make their own costume (with help of course). The first few months of their employment is full of training, making the food in the kitchen, and gathering inspiration for their own suit.
• The employees get to keep their costumes. In fact, I’d encourage them to go to those fursuit and comic conventions.
• Hire artists to create stickers and books based on the characters that the employees create.
• If the cafe does well, I’d quickly add a boutique with costume pieces like ears and gloves and the cute accessories often worn by Lolita costumers. (Not the masks though, wouldn’t want people coming in pretending to be employees.) Perhaps add other little shops, like a gift shop, bookstore, play area, anything to expand the super cute world.

The Adventure I Didn’t Want February 7, 2023

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Bilbo may have been excited to go on an adventure, but there are different kinds of adventures. Some exciting, some start out exciting, and some are downright unpleasant. Yesterday was one of the latter kinds.

It started with a few errands, just getting some groceries, parts for a project, even stopping for a healthy treat. We were supposed to end the escapades at the neighbor’s house to pick up some sweet potatoes. My roommate Su went in, had a good long chat. A very, very long chat. (These two love to chat. Maybe it was foolish of me to stay in the car.) Finally I joined them, partly to remind Su that we had lunch sitting in the car, and partly to relieve my boredom. Either way, when we headed back out to my car I realized I had made a massively stupid mistake – I left my keys in the car!

But wait! It gets worse, so much worse.

I had long since given Su a copy of my car key, but her purse with her keys were in my car.

We were only a few blocks from home, but both our house keys were in my car.

Yes, I had locked ALL our keys in my car!!!!! (And our lunch)

Now, this might not have been so bad. Most people would have just called a locksmith or the police, but there’s one problem – my vintage car is one of the most difficult to break into! The last time I locked my keys in the car, the police officer had only one option – to bend open my door. (Thankfully my mechanic was able to fix it so I didn’t have to pay for a new door.)

That’s ok! My landlord’s son lives nearby and he has a copy of the house key. One quick call and this will all be…

NOPE! He was on a business trip!

At this point, I’m laughing at the sheer frustration of it all. Only one option left – drive an hour to where my landlord works and borrow his key. We can get in the house and look for my spare, which sadly I haven’t seen in ages so we only had guesses where it could be. This was gearing up to be a long day.

Time to beg a huge favor from the friend we were visiting. Thankfully she loves to spoil us. She handed us a couple ham sandwiches (and a taste of her famous jambalaya), carefully drove her car out of the carport that I was blocking with my car (that was seriously stressful getting it out), and…

Her son texted saying he needed picked up from school with a broken hand! I’m not making this up!

So, off to the high school to pick up her son, over to the insta-care in town to get it x-rayed, watch two episodes of a sitcom (that I am definitely not a fan of, but my phone was dying so I didn’t have a choice), give a sigh of relief that he didn’t break any bones, fly up to the landlord’s work, grab some dinner at one of my friend’s favorite drive throughs, fly back home, and…

You can peel your fingernails out of your laptop. It’s not bad news this time. I found the key exactly where it was supposed to be (thank goodness), Su and I walked back to the neighbor’s house, and we had my car back before you can say “that was one of the worst days ever.”

Gotta admit, I must have a talent for messing up bad like that. But all’s well now, and I guess that’s one way to get a break from my regular work.

P.S. Today I went to get another copy of my key made. Maybe hide it under a rock in the yard, maybe weld it to an ear stud. Something. Anyway, the hardware store no longer carries the key blank I need. Sigh. Maybe I should get a lock pick set instead.

Dreams of Dreams February 2, 2023

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I guess it’s time to tell you my biggest goals in life. I’ll have to do so in order for my dream last night to make sense. I’ll also have to tell you some of my troubles along the way. So, buckle your seatbelts! Here it comes!

My biggest goals, my dream life:

1. To buy a house with cash. Why? To prove to everyone, especially myself, that I’m not a loser. Major bonus that the bank can’t take my house away and I’ll never be in debt!
2. Find a lifelong partner. Not just someone who thinks the job’s done when the knot is tied, the hay is rolled, and the bills are paid.
3. Become a serial entrepreneur. I have over 300 business ideas, and I’d love to have a team of crack entrepreneurs who can help me create many of them.
4. Be a philanthropist. Should I be admitting that here? I want to be a giver, helper, a world-fixer, not a sucker. Bear that in mind.

That said, I can’t seem to unglue myself from the sofa. I may not be a complete Otaku (someone who hides away and fills their life with anime and games), but the dishes aren’t getting done and neither are my dreams. I’ve tried a few small businesses with little success, partly because I just can’t seem to find the motivation to do so.

Maybe motivation isn’t the right word. I desperately want the above goals! Sometimes I cry myself to sleep for want of them, but to make myself get up and do the monotony required feels like asking someone to nail a blade of grass into a tree. And yes, I do think I have ADHD.

So, my dream last night: First off, I dreamed that someone gave me a handful of glass marbles with Pokemon inside. Cool, right? I do enjoy playing Pokemon Go on occasion. Later, I dreamed that I found myself at an auction dinner party where people were participating in a silent auction during the evening. I looked at the items available, and most of them were exactly what I want! A nice little cottage with a little acreage for a garden and orchard. Private business coaching with some of the top experts. Even a wonderful workshop for developing products. Then I discovered the guests were offering their Pokemon marbles, and not just any Pokemon either. Even the lowest bid was for the super strong, super rare Pokemon. I had a couple that were more rare than the basic ones, but nothing anywhere close to what everyone else had.

Of course, I cried. What was I doing there anyway? There was no way I could ever afford any of those things. My dream might as well be fodder for a bonfire.

That’s when the event organizer found me. She asked what was wrong, and after explaining, I showed her my pathetic offerings. I cried that I had absolutely nothing else. She hugged me for a moment (probably something an event organizer shouldn’t do to a stranger, but it’s my dream, and I needed a hug) then asked if I was sure. Was that really ALL I had to offer? Then she pointed at my chest and asked “What about your dragon heart?”

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, according to my dream I have the heart of a dragon! (Thankfully not the heart of a Pokemon 😉 Perhaps my dream last night was trying to tell me that I do indeed have what it takes despite all my struggles and inadequacies. Perhaps, deep down inside, I’m not a pathetic loser. Perhaps this timid, quiet, naive girl actually CAN achieve her goals if she digs down far enough to gather the strength and wisdom within her. Perhaps I have it within me to be more, much more than I currently am.

To wrap up the dream, after I sighed and admitted to the woman that maybe I could offer my dragon heart, she instantly announced to the group that the auction was closed and they had a winner. A winner? Which one had I won? Then she turned to me with a big smile and said “All of them.”

Diamond Painting & Isakai January 31, 2023

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Ugh. I didn’t really want to start yet another hobby. I already have too many to count. I already have too little room to do hardly anything in my little apartment. So why did I start diamond painting? I guess I’m a sucker for new craft mediums, and gorgeous images of galactic views reflected in a romantic lake. (Ok, I don’t have that one yet, but it’s on my wishlist.)

Maybe diamond painting wouldn’t be so bad if I knew what to do with all these extra diamonds. It’s nice that they include so many in case you’re a bit of clutz like me, but there are so many that I almost completed two small kits with only the diamonds from one of them! I wonder if someone sells that sticky canvas without an image so I can create my own designs. Or, I saw someone wrap a pen with double-stick tape then cover the pen with these plastic diamonds. That nice, I suppose, but I’d prefer something a little more… worth it. Time to browse Pinterest for ideas!

Or not. I should get back to my writing.

Since I’m a bit addicted to anime, I thought it would be fun to write a light novel. I particularly love OP Isakais like Ascendance of a Bookworm, Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear, By the Grace of the Gods, and Knights & Magic. (But for the love of #!%$! why does every anime have nudity!!!!! I swear!!!!! If I ever get my hands on………….. but that’s a topic for another day.)

This time I thought it would be fun to have an isakai with a maid cafe for monsters! (And no, I don’t remember if I ate spicy pizza the night before I got this idea.) It should be fun, although it will be hard work. This will be my first longer format piece. Even organizing my thoughts is proving daunting, but I’ll give it an honest shot.

I guess it’s time January 30, 2023

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Well, I guess it’s time for an update. Long since time. Frankly, I’m considering just deleting all the posts and starting over, but this is one of those journaling blogs, so I might as well journal what’s actually happening.

The diet I mentioned last time was a bust, but what else is new. In fact, we’ve tried another one since then with the same results. However, the last one was one of my favorites. We were doing an adapted version of WFPB (Whole Food Plant Based), or Vegan. We still ate meat on occasion, mostly when we were invited to a dinner party or when we were out shopping (our entire county is seriously lacking in healthy choices that fit our budget). We’re not opposed to meat, we just think we don’t need nearly as much as most people eat.

So, what do I like about it? Actually, it was more my guts and my arthritis that liked it the most. In fact, when the Spring vegetables are ready to eat, I intend to go back to it but with better recipes. If I can have fun with recipes and treats, I think I’ll do much better at it. Also, if Su is much more relaxed about it. Sorry Su, but if I have to eat another Walmart salad I just might freak out.

Now, the question is what wonderful veggies to add to the garden this year? The past several years we’ve had a very paltry garden, and this year I plan to right that. 🙂

Diet Update June 2, 2021

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It’s long since time for an update. Shortly after my last post, my best friend Su called saying she wanted to try a diet with me. “Great,” I thought, “another one of her diets.” I love her to bits, but when she brings me these crazy diets that cut out delicious and wonderfully healthy foods, like healthy fats and whole grains because they have both fats and carbs, I honestly want to cry… or scream… or something.

Well, this time she brought me the best diet so far.

I should probably pause here and tell you that 1) I have no idea how complete her description of the diet is, so I don’t know how closely we’re actually following it. 2) There are enough questionable things in this diet to make me not want to promote the author and his diet plan. For example, he says no white bread, yet he thinks salt crackers are fine?! They are just as nutrient deficient. I seriously question if he wrote the recipes, which makes me seriously question other things. I can almost bet he hired a ghost writer.

So, back to describing the diet. It’s called Fast Burn by Ian K Smith. #1 – It includes ALL the food groups. I’m a strong believer in a fully balanced diet. We are omnivores for a reason!!! #2 – It takes hunger and “starvation mode” (where our bodies begin to store fat if it thinks we have a food shortage) into account. #3 – It mixes things up, a lot. From the number of meals, to the kinds of meal, and even the times we can eat. He claims it’s to not let your body stagnate into patterns. No idea if it makes a difference, but I have a very bored palette, so this is great. #4 – Su and I can adapt it to our preferences. For example, Dr Smith mentions a salad with fat free dressing, so we put salsa on ours. 😁

Now for the concerns. As I mentioned, the book has several grammatical errors, he contradicts himself, and I just have to wonder how much of the book was ghost written, or if he wrote it after a couple shifts at work and hyped up on 5 Red Bulls. He also says some things that make me think this diet is written for men. For example, after 9 weeks we should hopefully have reached our goal weight? Ha! Not unless this was only meant for ladies trimming up for swimsuit season. And there are still a few food choices I don’t agree with. I’m still eating egg yolks, and staying well away from sugar and fat alternatives.

That said, I have lost over 10 pounds, I feel pretty good, my cough has decreased a lot, and I’ve gone down a pant size! 😁 However, I still have 30 lbs to go to teach my goal. Gotta keep going, if for no other reason than for Su’s sake.

Add Two More Weeks 😫 April 19, 2021

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Aaaand the first week on my diet bombed. I guess I’ll be adding two weeks to the schedule. Of course, I could work harder and make up this extra 1/2 lb later, but we’ll see. I probably have to face the music and quit the popcorn, cookies, and eating every couple hours. (Ok, maybe every 3+ hours.)

On other news: Other goals have been put on hold while I get my taxes and bookkeeping up to snuff. (Maybe I shouldn’t use that word. I should look up the origin of that phrase.)

However, that said, my writing is coming along. I have the text finished, and the illustrations planned. Now to figure out how I’m going to actually illustrate this thing. I keep distracting myself with what I will need further down the road, like marketing, networking, website, and I don’t even know how I’m going to finish this thing yet. Sigh. 😞 I could rename this blog “Living with Distra… Squirrel!”