Wednesday's Hodgepodge

Linking up with Joyce. 

1.  April 15th is the deadline for Americans to file their state and federal income tax returns.  What's a job you do on a regular basis that could be described as 'taxing'? 

Switching the laundry in the wash to the dryer. I haven't the slightest idea of why I hate this so much.

2. I'm participating in the April A-Z blog challenge, and the Hodgepodge happens to fall on Day O this week. In keeping with that theme...olives, onions, oysters, okra...of the foods mentioned, what's your favorite O food?

Black olives. I do not buy them since I will eat the entire can (true story). I love their salty goodness.

3. Term limits for our elected officials...your thoughts? 

I haven't really put a ton of thought into this but I think we should shorten the term to 2-years. That way if a president or official isn't doing a great job, we can get someone else in there fairly quickly.

5. On April 18th, 1775, Paul Revere made his famous 'midnight ride'...when did you last make a midnight ride?  Perhaps the fate of a nation wasn't hanging in the balance, but tell us where you were headed anyway.

It is funny that this is a question. I am almost never up past 10pm. Yesterday we got stuck at the Miami airport due to the American Airline systems shutting down nationwide. We were supposed to be back at the Pittsburgh airport at 7pm. A nice time. Instead, we were in the air at midnight and we finally arrived back home around 3am this morning.

6.  What would freak you out more...a mouse running across your floor or a big fat hairy spider? 

A spider. I detest them. My husband caught a large spider in our basement last May. It was huge - about 5 or 6" across. Here is his photo:

He was a Pennsylvania fishing spider and they are usually found around creeks and streams. We do not have either in our basement and it still freaks me out to think he was down there.

 

7. I love it when people ask me________________________?

to help with a church event. Especially if I get to bake.

8.  Insert your own random thought here. 

I'm so glad we are home. We had a wonderful time on our vacation but there is truly no place like home. 

Feeding one of the turtles at the Marriott hotel in Grand Cayman

 

Last Day in Grand Cayman

Today is day 7 of our vacation and it is our last full day. We leave for the airport tomorrow morning. 

We rented a car yesterday and I'm so glad we did. We have been staying at Comfort Suites & then the Marriott on Seven Mile Beach. It is a lovely beach but it is a bit crowded. 

Yesterday we drove along the coast and up to the north side of the island to a place called Rum Point. The photos say it all but the water was some of the clearest we have ever seen. We walked past where the small boats docked and the water was still up to our waist. We are headed back there today. 
 

Rum Point Beach

Rum Point Beach

There were free beach chairs set up on the beach! All the beaches are free to the public and all the parking is free. 

 See the white boat on the left of this next photo? We walked past that boat and the water was still just as clear and only up to our waist. While we were floating around, three sting ray came over to see if we had any food for them. Sadly we didn't and they swam slowly away. 

There are excursions which are quite expensive that take you to feed the sting ray. But we got to see them for free.  

The pier at Rum Point.

The smaller boats come into the swallow water and throw out their anchors. Then the owners swim ashore and hang out.

A panoramic shot of Rum Point. This was one of the nicest beaches we have ever been to.

Linking up with The Chatty Mommy:

More Grand Cayman Photos

We are on day 4 of our 8 day vacation in Grand Cayman. We are staying on Seven Mile Beach. The weather has been absolutely gorgeous - low 90's and sunny. The water is just a bit too cold for my husband's liking but we are swimming and floating every day. 

Tomorrow we switch hotels. We are at the Comfort Suites right now and we are moving next door to the Marriott. We won an ebay charity auction which included the flight tickets and 4 days at the Marriott. Since we wanted to extend our vacation but not go broke, we decided to rent a cheaper hotel first (Comfort Suites). They are literally next door to each other and they share the same beach. We saved at least $200 a night by doing this. Crazy. 

See the yellow floats? The hotels provide them and they are anchored. We have used them almost every day. We love free stuff! The man wearing the back pack and flying high above the water was very entertaining. This photo was taken when the sun was behind the clouds in the evening and so the water doesn't appear to be turquoise - but it is!

My husband heard a 'squeak squeak' sound and noticed this large lizard-thing crawling up our window. We are on the third floor. He was quite creepy. Thankfully he decided to move on quickly.

Taken today around noon. Isn't it gorgeous? The dark spots are coral reefs. There are beautiful fish that swim amongst them. They are about waist deep so it is easy to walk over to them and just look at the fish.

Another photo I snapped today. The water is super clear.

Yet another lizard. Thankfully they are more scared of humans than we are of them.

We decided to rent a car for Sunday & Monday and explore the island a bit more. This is going to be our big "splurge" on the trip. LOL. It cost us $30 a day to rent.

We have been eating the free buffet breakfast, granola bars and soup we had brought with us and went to the grocery store twice. It is expensive here on Grand Cayman. Just to give you an idea of the crazy prices - a loaf of bread is $8 and the cheapest can of soup is $3. I'm so glad we packed plenty of snacks!

We are HERE

 The first three photos are Grand Cayman taken from the plane. We got wonderful seats - exit rows with extra leg room for my tall hubby. 

The first flight from Pittsburgh to Miami was 2.5 hours. We had a short layover in Miami and then onto Grand Cayman. That flight was around an hour. We got here around noon and thankfully the hotel could give us our room early. 

And a pleasant surprise...our hotel has internet. The weather here is gorgeous...about 90 degrees with a nice island breeze. 

There are hammocks around the hotel pool. Very fun!

We are going to explore a bit more tonight.

Recent Ebay Sales - 4/6/13

This will probably be my last 'ebay post' for a few weeks. My feedback is slowly moving towards the 10,000 mark. So far it is at 100% which means everyone has been satisfied. I'm hoping to hit the mark by the end of summer.


1. Ann Taylor off white open-front top, sold for $25. Notice the tag says this original sold for $29.99. That means that with shipping, my buyer paid more than what was written on the tag. 

2. Citiknits (a QVC brand) sheer top, sold for $25. Citiknits (and all QVC brands) has a number on the label that starts with the letter 'a'. You can go to the QVC website and put the number in the search bar. It will bring up the original item.

3. Sangria black jersey dress with a beaded neckline, sold for $20. 

4.  Evan Picone summer dress, sold for $22.50. 

5. Ralph Lauren white eyelet skirt, sold for $47.50. 

6. Diane Von Furstenburg wrap dress, re-sold for $63. This dress had previously sold to a brand new ebayer. They never paid. I opened a case against them and won. This means I got my original listing fees back and was then able to re-list it. 

7. Ann Taylor black sleeveless dress, sold for $25.50. 

8. Anthropologie brand "Bica Cheia" navy cords, sold for $28.50. 

9. J. Crew black v-neck dress, sold for $40. J. Crew puts a five digit style number on all their labels. You can usually google the style number and find what J. Crew originally called the dress. This was the "Banquette" dress and I believe putting that in the title helped it sold. 

10. Carlisle snow leopard silk top, sold for $25. 

11. Ralph Lauren ombre silk blend top, sold for $30. 

12. Talbots purple & gray skirt, sold for $20 due to a flaw. 

13. Connected printed jersey dress, sold for $22. 

14. Nanette Lepore black & white printed dress, sold for $40 due to a few minor flaws. 

15. The Limited black wrap dress, sold for $27. 

16. Banana Republic white cotton gauze skirt, sold for $20.

Forcing myself to post

It is 10pm - way past my bedtime. But I realized I haven't posted in awhile. 

The hubby & I have been busy getting ready for our trip. It is only 3 days away. 

I was a super packer and got all of our clothing along with our shoes into one carry on suitcase. Did you hear that? ONE carry on. Yup, all our clothing and shoes. 

I was so proud of myself.

And then I found out that we could take a full suitcase for free. LOL. I had called American Airlines to find out if I could take a razor along in the nicely packed carry-on and they said that we each get a free checked bag. 

So we are checking the carry-on and another bag which is now packed with floats, food and a few other non-necessary things that I couldn't fit into the carry-on.


Yesterday I spent a few hours helping the hubby with some major yard work at his father's house. The county puts gravel down on the road to help with the snow. It adds traction (or something like that - I am clearly not a road specialist). We swept it up and loaded into our trailer. Then I came home and collapsed. I am not cut out for physical labor. 

I spent the rest of the day making cookies and cupcakes which I took to an outreach project tonight. Our church is super involved in the community. We have a church of about 150 and I literally cannot keep up with the amount of outreach we do. It is amazing.

The cookies and cupcakes were almost entirely eaten by a swarm of pre-teens and teens. It was fun to watch them eat...and eat...and eat. Seriously, some of the boys ate 4 sloppy Joe sandwiches and multiple cupcakes. 

I had some will power and had an orange wedge. I am just days away from putting on a swimsuit afterall. 

This past week I have also caught up in my New Year's resolution. I tried zucchini, parsnip and Brussels sprouts. Parsnip tasted like carrots which wasn't terrible. I will never have another Brussel sprout. Ever. And zucchini was gross - even fried in olive oil. Weeks 11, 12 & 13 are done! I plan on picking up two more veggies/fruits after church on Sunday.

Recent Ebay Sales - 4/2

This time next week we will be sitting on a beach in Grand Cayman! Today we are starting to pack which is always fun. 

I had a wonderful & encouraging email from another ebayer this morning. She left me her user ID and I so badly wanted to reply. Except I somehow deleted the email from my phone. I'm so sorry and I hope she emails again! :) 

She asked a few great ebay questions that I atleast wanted to reply to here in my blog. 

Q. Have you ever gone without sales for a period of time? 

A: Yes! I think every ebayer has. I have a store stocked with about 500-600 items usually. I can go a few days without a sale. It is fairly rare though.  If my sales have slowed, I usually put my store on 'sale' mode. Ebay allows store owners to create sales. You can put the sale on the entire store or just pick up a few items. Usually a 20% off sale gets things going again. 

I try to list atleast 50-70 items a week which also helps the store from 'going stale' as I call it. 


Q: Do you use auction style, fixed price and a combination of both? 

A: For those that don't know, ebay allows you to pick two different styles of listing. One is to put your item on an auction for 1, 3, 5, 7 or 10 days. This allows you to start the price and allows others to bid. The other option is to use a 'fixed price' listing for 3, 5, 7, 10 or 30 days. This is a cheaper option and supposedly it doesn't get as much attention as auctions. You put your 'happy price' on the listing and when it sells, it sells. There is no bidding. 

I usually use fixed price listings. For my level of store, it costs just 5 cents to list an item for 30 days. (Auctions can cost about 50 cents to $1 each) I can list it and forget about it until it sells. If ebay offers a listing sale (usually a sale where everything is free to list), I will try auction style.

Auctions work well for items that are deemed 'hot sellers'. These would include items that are hard to find. 

My items are usually Talbots and Ann Taylor skirts and dresses. They are nice items but they aren't super special one-of-a-kind items. If I put an Ann Taylor skirt up on auction, it may get one bid or possibly two. So it usually sells for the opening bid. If I put the same skirt in my store, I will probably get a bit more for it. 

I hope that helps! (And please feel free to email me again...I promise not to delete it!)

Selling on ebay full-time is a lot of work. But does allow for a flexible schedule. Most days I work about 10+ hours. Remember to allow for things like insurance, taxes (those darn things!) and time off (i.e. vacations and sick time).  

Sometimes I have to push myself. It would be so easy to just stay in bed but there are items to be packaged and mailed. There are items needing washed and listed. There is money to be made! 

Here are a few items that have sold: 

1. Boston Proper red paisley rayon dress, sold for $21. 

2. Chico's turquoise shorts, sold for $25. I took the time to research these and found they were still available on the Chico's website. However, they had sold out in this size & color. I think that helped sell them and so I priced them a bit higher than normal.

 

3. Ann Taylor yellow & pink floral dress, sold for $29. 

4. Skecher's mens leather shoes, sold for $25 within a day of listing. These were just sitting in my hubby's closet. He also gave me two more pairs to sell.

5. Boden dark purple dress, sold for $28. It had a small flaw and probably would have went for more if it was perfect. Oh well. I'm still pleased with the sale.

6. CAbi black jacket, sold for $20. 

7. Ralph Lauren black dress, sold for $21.50. 

8.  Sag Harbor navy blue floral skirt, sold for $19. Sag Harbor wasn't ever a brand I picked up. However, I have sold a few at a decent profit and so I am now picking them up.

9. Evan Picone black & gold lace cocktail dress, sold for $33. 

10. The last Target Swimsuit! It sold for $17. I purchased about 8 of these from Goodwill for $4 each. The first few sold for $25, the others for about $17-$20. Overall I made over $100 profit and these were super easy to list.

I just had an email from ebay congratulating me on my 1,000th sale for the year. That was just on my store ID. I have sold some items on my non-store ID which means I sold over 1,000 items in three months.