Shoes are Easier to Find Homes For
Posted on January 10, 2009 by Ching under Babies.
Shoes are easier to find homes for… Cute little Yorkipoos? Not so much. We’ve been trying to find a home for Molly for the last year now. We thought we found a home for her several months ago with one of the groomers at PetSmart but, when we came over to see if her other two (much bigger) dogs would get along okay with Molly, one of the dogs bit her on the head. It wasn’t a playful bite either. It was one of those scary ones.
Actually, all seemed okay at first. The dogs were playing in the backyard and for the most part leaving Molly alone. One of the dogs was next to me and when Molly came to me, she just snapped. It was very, very weird. Like the dog had split personality or something. Molly whimpered and I found a reddish-pink scratch when I checked her head. The owner said that the other dog was just being over-protective of me. When Molly approached me, the other dog felt the need to defend. The other dog knew that she had done wrong because immediately after, she squeezed herself between my calves and tried to hide there. As if to say, “I’m sorry I tried to eat your little dog.”
Brian and I decided, despite how sweet the owner was and how well-meaning, this would not be the home for Molly unless we wanted her to be a chew toy for the other two dogs, which were easily six times her size. Months later, Molly is still with us and we are still searching for a new home for her. She is so tiny and sweet. We just don’t want her to get fed to some killer dogs. I have heard of that happening and it just really scares me.
Jenni came by yesterday to pick up these almost new, only worn once (if that) Steven by Steve Madden 4″ peep-toe pumps. I bought them and worn them out once, but they hurt my feet so I never wore them again. The bottoms are barely scuffed. I also gave her a 30-gallon trash bag full of 32A bras that I can no longer wear. These were from back in our credit card hey day, when I could spend $50 on a bra and not think anything of it. If only I would have saved that money, we could have paid for re-plumbing the house in cash. If only…
But I digress… Though the pumps are very cute, they’re not as cute as Molly; so it’s very sad that their re-homing was so much more easier to achieve. I guess you don’t have to feed and groom the shoes.
Anyway, maybe Jenni felt so grateful for the almost new shoes that match her clutch and will work fabulously with an outfit she plans to wear on a trip to Memphis that she told us she would help us find a good home for Molly. I hope that she is really serious and I hope she succeeds.
Is anyone out there looking for a cute, adorable, sweet dog? Please message us asap!
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Because We are Cheap
Posted on January 7, 2009 by Ching under Life.
We couldn’t find inexpensive bedroom furniture that is both the right style and color locally; and, since there is no IKEA anywhere near us, we ended up ordering our furniture from Wal-Mart. We figured that we could save money on delivery by having the boxes shipped to the store and then simply picking it up.
Since Brian hates the Wal-Mart by us (the one on 29th Street — parking is a hassle and he thinks the place is dirty and just all-around horrible), we selected the Wal-Mart on Greenwich. The funny thing is, when we arrived at the Greenwich Wal-Mart, we had to circle the parking lot a few times to find parking. We had to endure the very thing that he wanted to avoid. Although he still believes that the Greenwich Wal-Mart is nicer than all the other Wal-Mart locations. A Wal-Mart nice? That’s like an oxymoron. It’s like saying, “Wow. That was a really fragrant fart.” Or, “That murderer is such a benevolent criminal.” There are words that just don’t go together. Whatever. We are cheap and decided to buy our furniture from Wal-Mart.
Brian’s dad David was nice enough to come to the store with us. He drove his truck just in case the boxes don’t all fit in our truck. So the three of us head to the Site-to-Store pick up section, which is at the farthest corner of the store. I told Brian that if we do this again, we are picking the smallest Wal-Mart in town so that we don’t have to walk so far to get to the Site-to-Store section.
The boxes all fit in our truck, but David followed us home. It worked out great because he was able to help Brian unload most of the boxes. Brian put together the bed that same evening. One of the pieces was damaged but we didn’t want to hassle with shipping it back for a replacement. Brian and I agreed that since it is on the back of the headboard, no one will really see it.
We used the all-in-one bedding set that Brian’s parents got us for Christmas. The colors are perfect for our chocolate room. Anyway, you can’t see the headboard because the bed is really high. The bed is really high because we put the box spring under the mattress even though we weren’t supposed to (it’s a platform bed)… We just didn’t know where else to store our box spring in the meantime. For now we just have to endure being really high up off the floor when we are laying in bed and feeling like “The Princess and the Pea Pod.”
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Blurb is Still the Best Value in Photobooks
Posted on January 4, 2009 by Ching under Reviews.
I hate you, MyPublisher! I want the last three weeks of my life back! GRRR!
Wait until I tell Brian. He is going to be livid because he sacrificed three weeks of no World of Warcraft so that I could borrow his computer while I built the second edition of the 2008 Halloween Poker Cruise photobook using MyPublisher — and for what?
I guess it would make more sense if I explained what was going on instead of just ranting and raving like a crazed loon. So I have been spending all my free time (any time I have not playing poker) outside of work creating this book on MyPublisher, thinking that it would be great to check it out and compare it to Blurb. The process was frustrating from the very beginning. The MyPublisher software is clunky and sluggish and not as user friendly as Blurb’s. However, I kept telling myself that it will be worth it because I have a two-for-one coupon so I’ll actually have two books at the end of this horrendous ordeal. Believe me, it was horrendous. I would click on something and have to wait several minutes before anything happened. I had to be careful not to work too fast or the program would crash and quit responding. I would have to save after every page to make sure that I didn’t lose anything in the event of an unexpected crash. I would have to reboot the computer several times in one sitting. And, if you’ve been following my tweets, you know that in some cases a page could take hours to complete. Suffice it to say, the process was just very, very agonizing.
So now I’m finally done. Hurrah! Time to celebrate, right? NOT! I click on the purchase button and after the usual long wait (which I am used to at this point, mind you, because I’ve had to suffer through it for the last three weeks) I find out that one book is going to cost me $130. Yes, ONE book! No wonder they are doing two-for-one offers. You could get two books for the price of one book at MyPublisher. It’s not much of a savings really. I very much would like to see the product of three weeks of hard work, but I do not want to spend $130 on a silly, frivolous book, so I’m thinking of scrapping the whole idea. I’m just sad that I wasted all this time working on the stupid book for nothing. You know, I wonder how many books they’ve sold (despite how overpriced the books are) because the person making the book felt so vested? I’m actually feeling this first hand. I don’t want to spend that much money, but at the same time I feel compelled to buy the book simply because of how much time and effort I’ve spent toiling over the book over the last three weeks. All that time and effort and nothing to show for it… What a nice gimmick!
BTW, another downside to MyPublisher is that it would not let me go beyond 100 pages. Blurb allows you add as many pages as you want. In fact, Sunny’s cruise photobook was 200 pages!
Anyway, I did a comparison of pricing of Blurb vs. MyPublisher for a 100-page hardcover book with a dust jacket and Blurb comes out way, way, way ahead.
- BLURB with shipping = $48.57
- MYPUBLISHER with shipping = $122.94
See the disparity? You could buy almost THREE similar Blurb photobooks for the price of one MyPublisher book. I’m so sad, I feel like I’m going to cry. I don’t think I ever want to use (or see for that matter) MyPublisher ever again.
BTW, I had a comment form Andrew Laffoon to check out MixBook not too long ago. It is another photobook creation tool. I was smart this time and priced it before investing too much time creating an actual book. A similar book would cost about $78.98 at MixBook, though you can save $3.00 by opting for the USPS media mail instead of ground shipping. It’s entirely up to you if the wait is worth the savings.
MixBook is actually very promising from what I have seen so far. Unlike MyPublisher, which doesn’t really contribute anything special or unique, MixBook has three key features I like: (a) I don’t need to download and install anything on my computer, a definite plus; (b) I can grab my photos directly from my Flickr account so I don’t have to endure the cumbersome process of downloading my photos from Flickr where they are permanently stored and then uploading them into the photobook software; (b) I can easily share my completed MixBook with others without cumbersome IDs and passwords; and (c) I can collaborate with other people, so I don’t have to build the book by myself. I think this last feature is brilliant because other people at the same event might have captured moments that I missed. If you are doing a photobook for a wedding or some other special occasion, then creating a group MixBook makes for a more complete book. Plus, the new web is all about collaboration so call this photobook 2.0 — LOL.
Granted MixBook is a little more expensive than Blurb, but they have all these wonderful features that Blurb doesn’t. It’s up to you guys if you think it’s worth the price premium. I think it is. The again, I store all of my pictures on Flickr so MixBook is going to save me a lot of time. If you have all of your photos on your hard drive and are on a tight budget, Blurb is probably the way to go.
Definitely going to try MixBook soon, I have to save some money though because I’m going to need about $80 to create the book I want to make. Maybe I’ll win some money at poker… I placed 4th last night and won $40. Took home $35 after tipping the dealer. After you consider our chair rentals for Friday and Saturday night, we are still down by $5 so I guess I need to find a way to save money some other way.
Oh, hey. I have an idea. I ought to collect donations. Contribute any amount you like toward my photobook happiness. Click here if you would like your donation to go toward MyPublisher so I can stop whining about how much time I spent on it OR here if you would like it to go toward MixBook so I can check it out now and be excited about something again. Thanks a bunch!
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The Pink Boa is the Girliest Store Ever
Posted on January 4, 2009 by Ching under Flickr, Life.
The Pink Boa has been around for about two years now and I’d still never been there. When Sunny found out she gave me a 25% off coupon to the store. With some of the weather we’d had over the last month and the craziness of the holiday, I’d still never gotten around to going. That changed yesterday afternoon when Sunny picked me up and too me there. It worked out perfect because my loving husband had absolutely no desire to go. He missed out on seeing some of the girliest stuff on the planet, though. Here are some of the photos I took with my phone…
It is the neatest store ever! I can’t believe I’d never been there. I ended up picking up an “Art by Amy” poker themed pendant (similar to the one that Sunny has, but with different baubles dangling from it) and two silks (a red one and a black one) to go with it. The store doesn’t allow any discounts on “Art by Amy” because they don’t do any markup on the price so I had to pick something else out to use my 25% off coupon on… Well, I technically didn’t HAVE to but I was compelled to because I am not one to pass up a good deal and I really didn’t know when I could return to the store, knowing Brian. Anyway, I picked out this Pink Panache ball-bearing poker themed necklace that I thought was really cool and unique. I was able to use my coupon on that.
Thank you so much for the coupon and for taking me, Sunny!
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New Year’s Eve Pictures
Posted on January 4, 2009 by Ching under Family.
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