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Michelle Shull

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Michelle

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Yours Truly
Michelle Shull

Paint under my fingernails, will it ever come off????

It has too long since I last posted and I apologize for that.  My Mom is retiring up here to Michigan and I have been VERY busy getting her new home ready for her.  I am in the midst of painting EVERY square inch.  Now let me explain to you how much I detest painting.  I would rather cut the grass, weed the garden and give the dogs a bath just to get out of one day of painting.  I have no choice though because she is moving in less than 10 days....  The clock is ticking so needless to say, I am not on the computer as much as I wish I were.

BUT this is the reality, it is my Mom and I am more than willing and mostly happy to do something to make her feel as if she is moving into a dream home for her...  She has been a ministers wife and then after my father passed away she has lived in apartments most all of her life.  This is the first time she can choose her favorite colors to paint her walls.  It may seem like a simple thing, but her excitement is a bit contagious....  SO here I am painting my heart out with paint under my fingernails......

Here's to happy painting...

Michelle

A Give-Away Opportunity by The Selling Sisters

A blog I love to read and follow called The Sellling Sisters is have a celebration give-away for their 500th comment...  So pop on over and enjoy the blog and sign up for the give-away, just click on their name it is a link to the give-away...

The Christmas Tree is Down.. Yes I am serious!!!!

I took our Christmas Tree down last night and it was sort of a sad occasion.  I know some of you are reading this thinking this chick is nuts.  Most sane people take the Christmas Tree down within a week of Christmas, if not the day after, right?  Not us...  Luckily I married a man who loves Christmas and our Christmas Tree as much as I do.  We love to have the lights on at night and just enjoy the subtle glow, it is beautiful.  I enjoy looking at the ornaments that represent the years of my children's lives. The weeks leading up to Christmas are crazy and I don't get a chance to truly bask in the memories of what the tree represents to me.  Now the time after Christmas is something different.  Life slows down a bit and I can sit and enjoy the Gingerbreadman that Sarah made in Kindergarten or Brass Ornament that was engraved in honor of Liz's birth. Call me goofy or sentimental, but by all means call me a MOM who LOVES her children, the memories of past years of tree decorating parties and a woman who will sit on the couch with a cup of tea and gaze at a Christmas Tree in February and smile at the memories.

Taming The Beast....

I have now had my eBay store, Redeeming Treasures, up and running for nearly a year now.  It has been a lot of hard work at times and it has been a joy at times..  It has also been our financial life raft lately.  I have been out of work for over 2 years and have officially considered myself self-employed for the last 3 months.  This business has paid our car insurance and our utility bills.  It has helped keep our home through the winter.  I have over 650 items in my store and it should be more, but I am in the midst of a MS diagnoses and my heart is not in it right now, so I am just hanging on and listing as I feel like it, but I still sell items almost daily due to what I established all those months before.  Everyday I ship out sales and that is an answer to prayer because I am making money when I don't "feel" like going to work.  We have some very wise women on the group I am an administrator for on Face book called eBay Underground and one of them has a saying and it is this " Are you going to work for your business or have your business work for you?"  I have found at this point in my life I am happy to say that I  have my business working for me.

Now the question is which one is it for you???  Are you a slave to your business or have you tamed the beast and have IT working for you?

One of those days.... weeks

Have you ever had one of those days that turns into one of those weeks?  Well boy am I having one this week.  It is far too deep to go into , but needless to say I want a do-over.. I want to do-over the entire week.I think I am bound to do better at listing in my  store, because I won't allow myself to become so distracted. (yeah, right)  I will do better with my housework, I will actually blow dry my hair and maybe put on some make-up.  One of the down falls of working at home ,I have found, is I have let myself go a bit.  I don't do my hair daily.  I don't do my make-up except on Sundays for church, which saves money on make-up, but REALLY how attractive can that be to my wonderful, husband.

You know what..  I am going to get up in the morning and I am going to blow dry my hair AND put on my make-up. I work my eBay business full time and tomorrow I am going to treat it like that, a full-time job.  Lets see if I get more done in an 8 hour shift.  I feel an experiment coming on....  Stay tuned...

Michelle

Another week past...

Well another has gone and it seems to have sped by.  I have been busy with the regular things that take my time as usual.  Housework, listing thing on the computer for our eBay store, Redeeming Treasures, keeping up with our Facebook Group eBay Underground.  I have met several new people this week and found people I never knew that happened to know me (long story).  We spent this week in our Facebook Group going through a Boot camp and we had to make directives each day and  I had to work to complete them daily, but I also had to work to choose which ones to pick.  Do I choose easy chores or do I push myself?  In some ways I guess I took the easy way.  I DID NOT conquer fixing up my ebay room exactly how I want it.  I hate to bother my hubby who works really hard, but I can't do it alone.  Maybe this week...  I did however get several listing issues taken care of, I finally have a new photo tent for taking more professional photos and it really does make a difference.  Overall.... I guess it was a successful week. especially thanks to Sandy our Sargent.  Boot Camp was great......

Tea Tee Oil.. What is that smell????

Now I am not going to try to fool you and tell you it smell like spring time, but it is a fabulous little brown bottle to keep in the medicine cabinet. It smells quite strong and not very pleasant , but it has great anti-bacterial properties. It can be used neat (or directly from the bottle, not diluted) on a cotton ball to take care of a scraped knee or a mosquito bite. It can be dabbed on a small acne break out. There is a whole host of people that add several drops of it to their shampoo and use it as a head lice deterrent. It is a very long story, but I can vouch for the fact that tea tree oil and olive oil mixed together placed and saturated on the hair, wrapped in saran wrap overnight can kill off even the most stubborn lice. It only takes 2 washings to get the olive oil out and the mixture somehow releases their glue to the hair shaft. The little guys just slide right off. I made a habit of spraying my girls hair and coats with a water and tea tree oil mixture before they left for school everyday when they were in elementary school after our little exposure. Never had another problem.

Bringing everyone up to speed...

I am a Daily Chronic Pain Sufferer and have been for well over 10 years.  It all began with daily headaches that just would not go away.  I went to every specialist that could possibly have anything to do with what was causing these headaches.  I have been to Oral Surgeons, Ear, Nose & Throat Dr's, Allergists, Rheumatologist, several Neurologist, Psychologist,  Physical Therapy and I have had several sleep studies.  I have been in the hospital twice for in-patient stays trying to break the headache cycles once for 3 days and once for 3 weeks.  I left with a headache each time.  I have had at least 20 MRI's and CAT-SCAN.  I have had Radio Frequency Nerve Blocks and Occipital Nerve Blocks.  I have had trigger point injections, I have even had Botox at the insurance companies expense across my forehead and scalp. lol

I finally found a Dr', who after nearly 10 years looked at all my records and said th me "Michelle I can tell you a couple of things.  You have Fibromyalgia and you have had it for years".  I sat there and cried tears of JOY, I finally had a name and I was not going t die.  He also informed me I had Chronic Fatigue and pooled it all under something called Central Nervous System Syndrome. It is getting worse, I can tell as I get older.  I lost my job for reasons not associated with this, but I see now that I may never be able to do my job again.  I was a Pharmacy Technician and it required a lot standing an bending the waist and neck  My Pain Management Dr. wants me now to go see an Infectious Disease Dr. to see if I might have been exposed to something  all those  years ago .  Probably something along the lines of Lyme's Disease..   We will see , I have an appointment with her on Jan 28th..

From here on out, all of the Chronic Pain issues will be on the Chronic Pain page of this blog.  I just wanted everyone to be aware of what the page was going to be about.   Well that long story made very short and I will  make sure more story will come out as time and question come in...  Please add you short story in the comments sections under each post.

Here's To A Happy Healthy New Year...

Michelle

UPDATE..

I have finally started to add some information to the page tabs.  It is most certainly a work in progress and will take some time, but I hope you will enjoy the little treasures that I come across and share with you....

Michelle

Good things are happening here at Wisdom or Ramblings....

I has been a while since I have devoted any time to my blog, but a dear friend has shown me that the world of blogging is not quite as imposing as I have been thinking it might be.. She has a beautiful blog KV Creative Designs, her name is Kathryn you should pop by her blog.  See what beautiful things she can create not only within the web, but her crafting abilites are amazing.....  You will not be disaapointed I promise.

As you can see from the tabs at the top, I have changed course yet again.  I was planning on having two separate blogs; one for my life in general and eBay and one for the other side of my life and that is Living with Daily Chronic Pain and starting a support Group locally.  Well to be bluntly honest, it takes a lot to maintain a blog properly and to run our growing eBay store Redeeming Treasures properly, so I am going to do what any sane human does and cut some corners... I know it will take a while for me to get up to speed on this new learning curve, but I have some incredible friends who are more than willing to help me get there.  So heres to many more posts on the new and improved "Wisdom or Ramblings".... 

Just a moment to say hello...

I so apologize for not checking more often.. I have been so busy with our eBay store and the holidays and company.  You know what, it really is not a good excuse.  It only takes a minute to pop on  here  and say s=hello.  So HELLO....  I am going to run my store a bit differently this year so I hope to have a tiny bit more time so hopefully I can devote some more time to this blog and my one on Chronic Pain.  More to come soon.....

Never enough time in the day.....

Am I the only one that finds there in NEVER enough time in my day?  I sit here not working a traditional job, so you would think I would have a pretty light schedule.  Not so.  I am very busy with my eBay store and getting it ready for the holidays.  I have gotten involved in a new and exciting Facebook group called eBay Underground come check us out sometime if you are looking to learn about selling on eBay or are already selling, but would love some friendship and fun.  We are having contests and we post our progress through the week (only if you want to).  We encourage each other to get to listing when we are pooped.  We certainly use our combined brain power to figure out "what in the heck is this?"  In our group we encourage your business growth, however that may be.  We are thrilled to have you post affiliate links to a post.  Understanding that several people are probably affiliates for the same company, it would be nice to share the wealth.  We even have a place where we all post our stores and blogs.  Come on over and see what we have to offer you might not want to leave.....

Bean Counter Interview

Please take this post with a grain of salt. I hope I have correctly repeated all the information I received. As with any profession there are vast differences in opinions, so one accountant may not agree with mine, but then again, this is free advise.. If you have any questions please contact a tax professional because I only play one on T.V.... ;-) OH yeah.. this is long so grab a cup of coffee or tea or a margarita....




My Morning With My Bean Counter :-)



Collection of State Sales Tax?

YES, DO IT... Collect for the state you live in and it is optional to collect for the states you sell to, which in our cases would be all the states. There is a section on the Income Tax Form that says something along the lines of Use Tax (I am am not sure of the exact wording he was talking fast and it was not something I will be doing). If you do not there is a flat option that is based on your income that is usually the best option.



Possible New Law- Requirement to Collect for Sales Tax ALL States?

There is a HUGE push right now to get this stopped and buried, but it is not looking real good. It appears to be looming on the horizon. If all things line up, it will be law and we will be paying Sales tax to each state of the purchaser. The paperwork will be a handful. Get ready. That will be a year or two away.



PayPal 1099's?

They are coming and so are 1099's for anyone who you do business with for over $599.99 as of December 31, 2011, more to come later. All I will say now is DOCUMENT, DOCUMENT, DOCUMENT!!!!



Write-Offs?

There are 2 different groupings for us today, I am sure there are several others, but for todays sake we are dealing with 2. First is: % of Square Foot or Home Office and Second is : % of Use or Depreciation. We will start with Home Office. First you need to determine where in your home you do eBay solely, by that I mean ONLY eBay, nothing else. No guest room, No laundry room, No garage, No Dining Room Table... eBay ONLY.. For example your home is 1200 square feet and you use a 3rd bedroom for your “eBay room” it is 120 square feet. Then 10% of your homes square footage is solely for eBay. Make sense?. If your home is 2000 square feet and you use your family room and that is the only thing you do in there and it measures out at 400 square feet.. You have dedicated 20% to an “eBay room”. You can deduct 20% of the following from your taxes as a “Home Office”. The Home Office items include: Mortgage, Property tax, Home Owners Insurance, Home Repair, Electric, Gas, Internet etc......... Now for the % of Use that is for purchases that are used up within a year or will depreciate. That would include a computer, fax machine, desk, chair, paper, ink, cell phone, computer repair, etc. On this one you need to determine how much use is personal and how much is business and this decision is iffy. Example. Cell Phone. I don't use my phone as much as you all for research. I would only deduct maybe 25% for business, where you all who do tons of research while thrifting might live by the phone might take 75%. The computer purchase, if I buy a new computer it will be mainly for eBay so I will take 90% deduction..



Gas Mileage? Record Keeping?

What the govt pays for mileage changes through the year. It had changed 2 times this year already. It was .55 and now it is .50. The best way to keep track of mileage is the old-fashioned way. Keep a notebook in the car and write a beginning and an end or keep it in a Day Planner. At the end of the week put a total in the corner, then at the end of the month put a total at the end of the page and circle. Then when you go into the Accountant you only have 12 numbers.. Keep mileage for trips to the Post Office, Thrift Store, Yard Sales, Staples, UPS, Computer Repair, Accountant, Bank, etc





Business Checking Account vrs. Personal Checking Account-

We came to the conclusion it is by far a better option for ME to open a Business account. It will have my store name as the primary name then I will be a signer and my hubby will be also for shopping trips. I will change PP and make it my default account in PP. I do not like the fact that PayPal is linked to my personal checking account and I don't like the lack of a paper trail. As this nightmare called Govt. gets a hold of our money more and more, we will need to prove where our money came from. So I have officially gone to my Courthouse and gotten a DBA (Doing Business AS) and I will be going to the bank in the morning and opening my first Business Account. I will do it at the same bank I have my personal account so I can access all the accounts online, but that way I will have a little system and it will go this way. Money from sales will be in PayPal, I will keep a set amount in there approx $100.00-200.00, anything over that I will transfer to my new business account. I will leave a cushion in there for emergencies (refunds, pay subscriptions, monthly fees also to get it away from the dreaded PP holds) THEN the extra if there is any...;-) I will write a check to myself with personal draw written in the memo section.. That will be my paycheck with a paper trail attached.



How to keep track merchandise purchased at Yard sales, no receipts?

Buy a cheap little receipt book and when you get to your car write down the item and the price you paid and the date, if you can write down the address for added verification. If Obama has his way, after 12-31-2011, we will need to get Name, Address and Social Security Numbers or Federal ID # on all purchases we make no matter the dollar amount because although it is not over 600.00 it MIGHT total 600.00 before the year is over, including yard sales. So to protect us dummies they are requiring us to get the info ahead of time just in case. Or there will be a fine. There is a HUGE fight now in DC about this. BUT it is a possibility. My Accountant truly believes this will not pass because of the MASSIVE amount of paperwork that will be created and the computer overload that will happen over night, but there is a chance.



Just keep educated. I would highly recommend getting an accountant, they really are not that expensive and they will save you a ton. I have had one for over 10 years and even on unemployment he has found me thousands ever year, no kidding. With this business I would never dream of doing it without him..



I AM NOT A PROFESSIONAL. I JUST HAD A VISIT WITH MY PERSONAL BEAN COUNTER AND AM PASSING ON THE INFORMATION I GLEANED AND HOPEFULLY I TOOK THE NOTES CORRECTLY. PLEASE CONSULT YOUR OWN ACCOUNTANT WITH ANY QUESTIONS YOU MAY HAVE... PLEASE TIP YOUR WAITRESS ON YOUR WAY OUT..;-)

Win a beautiful COLLECTIBLE Barbie

Click the above link for a chance to win on Ebay Coachs give away....
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