03/25/2011

I am just really exhausted.  I feel like I’ve been going, going, going all week long, and to an extent, I HAVE been going, going, going.  I go to this meetup on Thursdays called Successful Thinkers, it’s a place to get to know people, and "know, like and trust" a person.  It’s pretty neat, and I’m developing relationships through it.  My Partylite business has me flummoxed, and I simply don’t know what to do anymore.   My open houses have all flopped, I’m not getting much of any parties… well, it’s not going well.  I need to have some parties.  I have a site on Facebook, it’s http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sweet-Sarah-Partylite/136782963055849 that you can "like" me on.  I’m going to start putting up candle care tips, as well as video-ing them and putting them on YouTube.  I’ve got my first video made…now just have to find the cable so I can upload!  Anyway, Thursdays pretty much belongs to Successful Thinkers.  I can’t remember what I did last Friday…oh yea, cleaned for my non existent Open House… Saturday we went to Stockton for a Successful Thinkers regional conference, Sunday we went to the launch of a new church in town, Mission Church, where honestly, I answered a knocking on my heart to let God (Christ, take your pick…) back in.  I’d shut Him out.  I’m NOT going to go very much into this… I’m not a "church-y" person by any stretch…but truth be told… God’s been knocking, I’ve been too hurt to really let Him in.  Ok, then after church, a woman that we’d met on Saturday came by and pitched us on ACN… a telecom MLM (multilevel marketing, also known as network marketing… Partylite is a network marketing business, and they’re NOT all made alike!)  I SORT of want to get in…but the buy-in is 500 dollars!  And for that, you don’t GET anything but the ability to sell the business.  So the buy-in is steep.  It’s especially steep considering we’re STILL on financial aid and food stamps… and I have NO idea how I’d work the business, since none of my family want to do network marketing…well, MIGHT be able to get my brother to buy in… IF I bought into Melaleuca for him….which I MIGHT do, if I knew I’d have the money.  And after talking to Carol (that would be her name…and she’s a REALLY nice person!) I went to a book signing by a local author at a local hotel, and listened to her speak, then spent a good couple of hours talking to this woman who tells me that God made her straight instead of gay… let me just stop and say here, I believe gay is hard-wired…there’s NO choice in your sexuality, except the choice to abstain.  Okay?  But she was very nice…but has yet to respond to my friend request!  So.  When I got home from that, watched tv with DH.  It was not the earliest of nights.

Monday…field trip with Shabree.

Tuesday… Speech for Sammi in the morning, and then I forget what… but it was something.  Now I remember (after I finished writing the week’s events!)  Our friend Todd came through and stayed the night.  He’s a truck driver, ok… so Jerry had left in the morning to go to court (whole other story for another day!) and of course, with Sammy, I couldn’t go.  He was supposed to meet Todd for lunch, and I wanted very badly to go as well, but we couldn’t justify the gas of using two vehicles to go across Sacramento to meet up with him.   So Jerry suggested I call Todd and see if he could pick me up here, and take me to where we were going to meet up to eat.  Well, I did, and Todd was able to, so I went over to I-5, and literally waited on the off-ramp for him to pick me up!  What a picture that must have been!  Well, Todd didn’t miss the picture that would make, and turned it into this running joke…even taking a picture of me at lunch, putting it up on FB with the tagline… Check out this hottie I picked up on I5… oh, lol!  So I answered back, Yea, I’m gorgeous in my Barney jacket!   I finally explained the whole story about 6 or 7 hours later, and then told MY friends to go check out this picture just for a laugh!  It was all in good fun.  So at lunch, Todd pitched ME on an idea he’s been trying to get Jerry to join him in for something like two years now.  And I am truly interested in doing it… the money will be good, I can stay home and do it, get the kids involved, etc.  It’ll be a good fit for what I’m doing, and since it’s basically a "9-5" job (really, it could start as early as 5 am, or if I want to concentrate on the Pacific coast, 9-5, or anything in between… it’ll really depend on where we decide to concentrate our business)  Anyway, I told him, "You’ve been trying to get Jerry to do this forever, whatever made you ask me?" and he said it was the Partylite stuff…how hard I’ve been working on it, despite it not going all that well… made me feel pretty good about it.  And I can keep on doing Partylite around this business as well.  So he left us some DVDs, and I’ve been watching them to get training, and we’ll probably go to the actual training in Phoenix.  Maybe we can see Bobby, my brother in law, while we’re there…guess we’ll see.  I hope we can though, we hardly ever get to see him.  So after lunch, Todd came back with us… Jerry’d taken the carpet cleaning van, so I had to sit in the back of it for awhile… NOT fun… and of course, not even legal, but whatever.  My biggest problem wasn’t the legality of it… it was the pukey feeling I had facing backwards while the van was going forwards and the suspension isn’t the best, I don’t think, so it just HURT when taking turns, etc.  I was SO glad to get on solid ground and into the blue van and driving myself.  Ugh.  I got to drink some alcohol that night, and we started with the first DVD, but didn’t get any farther than that, hence why he left them with us.  I will be glad to be able to tell him that I have at least been watching them and looking at the study materials…. honestly, Jerry says he’ll do it, but I suspect the bulk of it’s going to be done by me, because Jerry’s already being pulled in to many different directions.  We’ll SEE….but I’m pretty sure once that’s launched, it’ll be up to me to make a go of it, and that’s just fine.  My biggest thing is to bring some good money into this house, but be home with the kids.  And evidently, you can make a 6 figure income with it.  It’s mostly phone work to boot, with some internet, and the nice thing is with my background, I won’t have ANY problems with the web piece of it, though it would be surprising to me if too many people alive today did… even older people are on the internet these days.  It’s not that particularly hard to use, and getting a web site is a pretty simple thing to do these days.   So yea, pretty excited about it, and really trying to think how I can set it up to actually create a few jobs.  I guess I’ll know more once I’m established.  Hopefully at some point, I’ll need to add people to grow the business, and though it won’t be a whole LOT of people, it’ll be something, and that is better than n

othing.  Todd left Wednesday morning.

Wednesday… oh, my first day that WASN’T busy/running around like a headless chicken, though I did decide I’d better go get some shopping done, since I wasn’t sure when I’d have time again!

Thursday, Successful Thinkers… and I was supposed to have a 1 on 1 at 5, and the gal never showed up!  Oh, and it was at Raley’s, which is a rather expensive local grocery store, and the one closest to my house has a playcare, so I dropped the kids off  there, and proceeded to wait for this gal for nearly two hours while I read and sipped soda.  Well, the manager got after me about that!  It was SOOOO embarrassing! 

Friday, or today:  Mostly uneventful, however, Syd had Science Camp this week, so went and bought her a welcome back balloon, Bec bought her a glow hat, and then I went to pick her up at 4, and of course the buses were late getting back.  Then tonight, we had a "Fabulous Friday Friendship" dinner that one of our ST friends holds monthly…she’s wonderful!  She spotlights one person/business each month, and allows them to show off their stuff, and people can ask them any question they want.  It’s pretty neat. 

So… I’m tired.  Tomorrow I’m SUPPOSED to be going to some training for ACN… I have questions, but honestly, I don’t HAVE 500 dollars to buy in, and don’t have a network to work…and ST already has an ACN rep… I can see market saturation being a real problem.  I kind of want to get in, because I think it’s a good product, and it’s not overpriced… basically you’re selling low cost phone, internet, and tv, plus they have a video phone which is REALLY cool… and they’re going to be featured on the Celebrity Apprentice this next Sunday, which they think is going to make a bunch of people want to get in, and it might….. but the 500 buy in is going to stop a lot of people in their tracks, and from what I’m reading as I’m doing my research is that their compensation plan kind of resembles a reverse pyramid, with people at the bottom making more than people at the top due to bonuses.  I’ve got to do some more research honestly…I spent too much time learning why MLMs are generally a bad idea, things such as market saturation.  There are some pretty disillusioned people out there.  Personally, if I get in, most of my money is going to some sort of savings and/or investing so that when/if I get out, it won’t "break" us.  Though the grander plan is really to have multiple streams of income, so if one thing fails for whatever reason, I/we still have others to fill the income gap, and we WILL live beneath our means.  I don’t intend to ever be on "welfare" again…never, ever again!  Thank goodness it was there to cushion us, but I never want to have to rely on it ever again.  Some day… I want to write a book… not sure what about, but it might be kind of cool to start it now, and have a story similar to J.K. Rowlings…however, I’m not sure I can ever admit to this time in my life.  I feel like it would be akin to saying, Oh yea, I tried to commit suicide once (I didn’t!)  People just look at you differently, and unless they’ve been there, they can’t understand what it’s like, so why tell them in the first place? 

Well, I am unfriending a bunch of people on FB, trying to get back down to my "real life" friends and people I actually INTERACT with on FB… so will post this.