I can't wait to do nothing again

I've been so busy with doctor's appointments that doing nothing hasn't been on the calendar. My feet, ankles and legs have been swollen for about a month or so now. It started when I went to Florida the beginning of July. I've had a few days where they felt okay but most days they are painfully swollen. I've had to keep my feet up when I'm home which means I'm not in my art room at all. I have taken some time to watch some videos that have sparked my interest though. They are on Buddhism and mythology. It's giving me a lot to think about and is sparking my creativity. I got a couple of things from Amazon today (string and clothespins) that I'll use to hang some of my art and stuff up in my room. I'm still waiting for my bigger art portfolio. Hopefully it will be here tomorrow.

I don't have any doctor's appointments set until the 12th when I see Dr. Fouss. I'm just waiting on test results now. So I finally have time to relax and do nothing. Nothing tonight means blogging, watching a video perhaps and maybe getting back to TAW stuff. I haven't done anything for over a week in any of the books. I will get back to it though. It's amazing how much impact not feeling good and having swelling in my lower extremities is having on me.

Anyway, it will be fun pulling out some artwork, songs, poetry, and photography that I've created to hang up on the wall. I'll take some pictures when I get some stuff up.

treasures

I just went through 2 art portfolios that I've had for years. I found a lot of poetry from the 80's and art that I did while I was inpatient at Two Rivers back in 2005. There is also some stuff I did at home in recent years. I love finding things that I forgot about or don't even remember. I'm getting a larger portfolio for my poster size stuff (which I think is under the futon mattress). That should be here sometime this coming week. I'm going to take time tomorrow and work on sorting through stuff so I can display it in the guest/creative room. Some stuff will stay in the portfolios because there isn't enough room to display all of it and there are some pieces that I don't want to display. They only have meaning to me.

I've been thinking a lot today about how I have a lot of supplies, sketch books, etc. that I don't use. I just like buying them and having them. Having them makes me feel like an artist, a poet, a writer. Today I don't feel like I'm any of those things. I dabble, yes, but I'm not accomplished in any medium. At least that's how I feel today. I think that's why I want to sort through everything and spend time just looking and reading. I don't know that anything comes naturally to me. Most of what I try to do feels like work unless it's during an inspired time. Then I seem to be able to produce works that even I don't know the origins of. I'm not sure where the creativity comes from. Does God give people those ideas? Is it just the creativity of the universe that we step into? I know that I really feel it at times and I know that most times I don't feel it at all.

I think it will be interesting going through all my creative pieces tomorrow. One thing I seem to forget to add is photography. I am a good photographer. I have a lot of pictures that are awesome. And not just because I took them but because the subject matter and composition came together at just the right time. Going through photos can be overwhelming though because I literally have thousands of them. Most are in albums or are somehow organized, so that makes it easier to go through them. It's the loose ones that overwhelm me.

I'll post some of the things I found today once I can get a staging area set up for photos. More later.

A few of my photos

I took this picture of the river rocks that are in the back yard. Sometimes the most ordinary, every day things can be the most beautiful. I love the colors and shapes. I was looking directly down on the rocks when I snapped the photo. This has always been one of my favorite photos.

These 2 photos below are from our trip to Yellowstone National Park in July of 2005.

The official beginning of the "Psychedelic Frog Fish" online gallery

This blog is still dedicated to the fine art of doing nothing but doing nothing will look prettier now with the addition of my creative pieces being displayed here. I might include a photograph, a watercolor, a sketch, a colored pencil piece, a poem, an illuminated text, a song, a craft or whatever else that shows what is going on inside of me. I'll be sharing works that were done as far back as the 1970's (and maybe even earlier) and ones that I might have done today. This is going to be fun. I'm looking forward to looking back at all the things I've created and displaying them in this blog for others to enjoy.

I already have some artsy photos on Flickr and a few pieces of watercolor. I'll link to all of them and pick out my favorites to post on this blog. Psychedelic Frog Fish Online Gallery

Enjoy the ride!

Where have all the shoppers gone?

I usually sell at least a couple of things on craigslist each weekend but I haven't sold a thing and it's Sunday already. I do have a bid on some photo paper I put on eBay, but that doesn't end until Monday. I'll make about $5 on that sale. I have some things on craigslist that I thought would sell right away but I only had a few bites on them (Kitchenaid Stand Mixer and Pampered Chef stoneware baker). I think that people's money and focus is on Easter this weekend. I think I might take everything off of craigslist so I can relist them next Thursday night. I have to average about $18.50/day to make my March snowflake goal of $1,000. I still think I can make it with eight days to go. I do have some stuff pending (Amazon, half.com and eBary sales and an $100 rebate from Office Depot on my new AIO printer. That would really help to reach the goal. Think I'll hop over to the MyTMMO forum and check out what's going on there. It's pretty slow there today too because it's Easter. Unlike me, most people are going to church, preparing nice meals and visiting with family and friends. David and I don't have any plans. I don't even have a ham to cook! No Easter basket with goodies in it either. Oh well, there's always next year.

The Dog Blog is BUZZWorthy

I had to make a call to a person who is helping me put some advertisement on the Dog Blog (my other blog). They found the blog and sent me an email telling me it's BUZZWorthy (I get to put a badge on my blog stating that lol). I think I've got the ad all set now. Guess I should look into getting something going for this blog too. Anyway, I also got a call from New York on the jewelry I was having appraised. The offered me next to nothing for it, so I asked them to return the items I sent to them.

I've been so busy doing nothing that I haven't had time for anything else!

Wow! It's been a while. Last time I posted I hadn't started working yet. I was just days until my first day at work. Well, here it is March 22nd and I've been at work for 4 months now. I am the medical receptionist for the Lab and Radiology departments at the East Branch of CSHP. I work 7:30am - 11:30 am, Monday through Friday. I really enjoy my job. Sometimes it gets a little overwhelming, but most times I can handle the flow of the patients coming in for Lab/Rad. I also enjoy the people I work with and they seem to enjoy working with me. I had my 90 day review the beginning of this month. My boss, Paul, came over from the downtown office to go over the review with me. I did really well. I had no areas for improvement because I'm doing such a good job. I'm making pretty good money and it brings in an additional $800 or so each month. That has been quite helpful for the finances.

We're still following the Baby Steps (Dave Ramsey's plan) and we are debt free but the house. We're working on BS3 right now - funding our Emergency Fund. I've been selling everything I can to get the money for the BEF (beginner emergency fund) and the FFEF (fully funded emergency fund). I'm trying to put my entire SSDI check to the EF each month. This month I was only able to put half of it to the EF though. But, every little bit helps.

On Thursday I started an FPU (Financial Peace University) class. For the first hour we watch a DVD of Dave Ramsey teaching a concept. The second hour we spend discussing the concept. The DVD was hilarious. Dave is so funny. It makes it enjoyable to learn about finances. It's a pretty big class too - at least 40 people (mostly couples). David didn't go with me to the first class because there was a college hockey playoff game on TV. I'm going to ask him to go to the next 2 classes though:

1. Relating with Money - how money effects relationships and
2. Cash Flow Planning- the dreaded BUDGET!

We have to have a 'quickie budget' done for the Relating with Money class. I already have ours. We've been budgeting since October 2007. I work on the budget all the time. I'm always updating it and tweaking it. It's fun for me to work on the budget (did I just say that out loud? lol). I've been active in the forum posting about 3x a day. It's so informative, encouraging and helpful to be a part of the forum. During FPU we get to be a part of the FPU forum. It's not quite as interesting to me as the MyTMMO forum is. Probably because we're on Step 3 now.

On April 5th we're going to a TMMO Live event. Yep, we're going to see the man himself, Dave Ramsey, live! I can't wait. Now that is going to be a fun time. It's a 5 hour event so I hope I can make it through the whole thing. We bought VIP tickets so we don't have to fight for seats and we'll get to sit up closer. I want' to see Dave, not a projection of Dave. I'm hoping it will really get David fired up about the plan. He's okay with it but isn't exactly gazelle intense by any stretch of the imagination. But at least he's on board. That's my birthday present this year - going to the TMMO Live Event.

So, we're done with BS1 - $1,000 in the bank (our beginner emergency fund). It's kind of weird to just have money sitting there "just in case". Nice feeling though. We completed BS2 on February 20th, 2008 when we paid off the Jeep loan at USAA for David's Jeep. Now we have the title to both of our vehicles. The only debt we have now is the mortgage. Very cool. I have the budget worked out so well that I can schedule bills to be paid once for the month and not have to mess with it again. That is a huge time saver and it assures that all the bills are paid on time. I love using web bill pay. No more checks, envelopes or stamps. The CU takes care of all of that. I only write out a check when I absolutely have to.

Now we're on BS3, which I'm finding to be the hardest step so far. It's not easy, when you are a spender, to just pile up money. We had a little bit in there last week and David bought new (used) wheels for his Jeep. $400.00 worth of wheels. It wasn't an emergency but it came out of the emergency fund. We shouldn't have done it, but we haven't changed our behavior completely yet. We are both still spenders. We have cut way back though. But a one time, $400 purchase makes a big, negative impact on the EF. I'm hoping to refund the $400 by the end of this month. Our ultimate goal is to have about $10k in the FFEF. That's going to take a while, probably until the end of this year. It will be worth the effort though.

BS4 is investing in retirement. We're sort of working on that right now because David gets a company match of 4% so we put that much in. At our ages we have to keep putting in the retirement account. Stopping for a year would not be prudent at this point in the game. I've been trying to do some research on what we should be investing in but haven't really come up with an answer yet. There's an investment forum on the TMMO forum and I've asked some questions in there but we still haven't got it all ironed out. I've also been checking online for advice. We're going to have to move quick and be a bit more aggressive since we only have $20k in the fund right now. I'm not eligible for 401k at work yet. I think I have to be there for a year before I'm eligible to contribute. I will though as soon as I can. I'm going to check out a ROTH IRA also. I may be able to start contributing to that sooner (once BS3 is completed). I'd like to sit down with an investment person (a DR ELP) and see where we should be putting this money right now. I'll have to look into that too.

We'll be skipping BS5 because that's a college fund for the kids and we're past that now. So, we'll jump right into BS5 which is paying off the mortgage early. That's a bit off in the distance right now though.

SSDI lets me work and make as much as I can for 9 months. After the 9 months I can only keep my benefits if I make under $940 a month. I'm already making more than that now so I'd have to figure out away to deduct from that amount over $940. I think filling my prescriptions every month instead of every 3 months would do that, but I'm not sure. Another thing I'll have to look into. Otherwise, I lose my SSDI and have to live on my part-time pay only. I'd have to ask for a FT position at the point. I don't really want to work FT though. I'd rather work part-time and get my SSDI benefits. I'd make more that way and I don't really think I'm physically or mentally capable of working FT now or months from now. I think July is the last month that I can make however much I want without losing benefits. In August I'll have to be prepared to have a plan in place. My prescriptions would have to be about $60 a month to keep me under the limit. I think that is possible.

Gotta go for now have a call to make.