Tricia's Musings

Random Thoughts about life in general, living in the big city of Toronto



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Something for nothing

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Why do so many people expect something for nothing?

I had a very bad experience a couple of weekends ago. I’m not going to go into all the details. I’ll just say that I provide a free service to people and over the last few weeks I’ve gone around and asked for a little more feedback and participation and it just seems to have all backfired on me.

I actually got quite mean spirited comments and emails that basically wonder how I “dare” ask them to participate. Well … duh .. it’s one of the rules of the service that I’m providing.

It’s upsetting. I felt like shutting down the service that I’ve been offering for approximately 10 months, and when the comments started to get a bit nasty I even started to think, to hell with it. I felt like shutting down that website too.

The service that I’m providing is absolutely free yet it actually costs me a little bit of money to provide. Don’t I have a right to require that people follow the very lax rules?

I’m in a very people are assholes kind of mood as I write this. Hopefully that changes.

Then yesterday, one of the mailing lists I run broke out into flames over a non-list topic. It took me into today to settle the list down and get it back on track again. This again is yet another free service that I provide as I run four mailing lists.

On another forum that I was visiting between naps and bleary eyed wakefulness I theorized over something that might affect the sites terms of service and had my words twisted around by two people, one of them an employee of the company I was discussing. It made me feel like leaving that forum all together. I don’t want to do that though as I learn of interesting things on that site, get some help with my sites when I need it, and I also offer some help and advice to others from time to time there too.

I actually got up and checked my calender yesterday to find out if there was going to be a full moon. Honest. I mean when I work in the ER you wouldn’t believe the crazy stuff that happens on Full Moon nights. I figured that perhaps that phenomena had invaded the net too.

I get really frustrated when things like this happen. I put a lot of myself into the things that I do, and many of the things that I do I’ve created with the benefit of others in mind. I often don’t get all that much out of these things for myself (the mailing lists in particular). So when people start turning things around, blaming me for things, or begin to take advantage of the situation it just makes me so angry.

How about you? Do you ever do things for people and end up feeling like you’ve been taken advantage of? or perhaps like my experience yesterday, have a bunch of things that go wrong all at once?





WomanSavers – rate a guy and a whole lot more

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Ladies listen up! Have you visited WomanSavers.com yet? If you haven’t you should take a moment to visit this site that touts itself as the worlds largest database rating good and bad guys. Some of the articles are amazing!

If you aren’t into reading some of the very interesting listings about good and bad guys or adding your own worst boyfriend to the list, you can chat with other site members, take relationship quizzes, join in on relationship polls and play women’s cartoon relationship games, shop, or read and join in the conversations on the the sites forums.

Speaking of the message boards. There is a large forum section devoted to abused women, called “Abuse Help” where women being abused can talk to others who can help, or who can offer support. A number of resources for abused women are also listed.

Other topics in the message board are general issues and general discussions, Infidelity and catching a cheater. There’s also a section for men too, and I’ll bet the men reading this were feeling left out. Men can use the message board to talk with others and get relationship advice, ideas for the perfect gift for that special woman, or perhaps even get some advice as to what women consider the perfect date.

One thing that I really like about WomanSavers is that all proceeds generated through donations or sale of WomanSaver items are donated to abused women and children’s charities.

Check it out. I think many of you will enjoy this site.

I had the worst weekend!

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I’m starting to feel like a broken record. “I don’t feel good” … I hope I don’t sound like that, really. In person or on this site. It’s just that, I really really don’t feel good! LOL

You know I like posting on my sites right? Well … if you don’t see new posts for day or more it’s probably because I’m not feeling all that well. I mean, I’m a woman … I can talk and post all day if I want to – it comes with the breed. We have lots to say. It’s just that when I’m feeling really bad I can’t make myself sit in front of the computer.

I thought that getting a laptop might help so I got one last August. My thinking at the time was that if I was having a bad day at least I could lie down or slouch on the couch (that rhymes!) and still type away, or at least surf my favorite sites. Stupid me … I’m a lefty and I like sitting or lying on the left hand side of the couch (left when facing) and uh … my left arm is touching the couches back. That makes it kind of hard to type. LOL

So you know what I do now when I’m lying on the couch not feeling well enough to sit up? I lie on my side, and have my laptop on the table next to the couch. I pull the table over so it’s touching the couch and lean in a weird position and type that way. I must say this works much better for surfing than it does for typing.

At least now that I have a laptop … well when my husband isn’t hogging it … I can go outside into my back yard garden with it, or uhm … I can lie in bed with it or even shhhhh take it in the bathroom. Shhhh I didn’t say that!

Having told you all the different ways that I can possibly use our computers, when I’m feeling good or bad, none of that helped me this weekend.

I have my bad days, and my semi better than bad days, but I think from Friday onward I’ve been the worst that I’ve been in a while. I might even be able to go back earlier than Friday, … but I know that whatever is going on got worse and worse from Friday onward.

I’ve been getting fevers in cycles of every two hours or so. It spikes up and I’m freezing and shivering, and then, maybe 20 minutes later I’m peeling off the sweater that I just put on because I’m too hot since the fever is coming down again. I’ll just start to feel better and boom another feverish spike. So on top of all the other medications that I take I’ve been taking Tylenol regularly for the last 6 or so days to try to control the fevers.

If you ever wondered why the domain that this website is on is called Feverishthoughts – well there’s your answer. Fevers are a regular part of my life. So is thinking.

I guess I withstood the fever spikes on Friday pretty well, but by Saturday they were taking their toll on me. My abdomen was aching and I was still feverish on and off. I went through a weird napping phase over the weekend and slept on the couch on and off from Saturday through to Sunday. I think the first time I slept in my own bed in days was Monday night.

Yesterday was the worst. Gut rot supreme. When I got up in the morning just looking at a glass of water almost made me lose whatever was in my stomach at the time. I think I got up around 9 a.m. and I managed to stay awake until about 3 pm, but then I crashed on the couch again until 6 or 7 pm. Spent a bit of time with my husband and then crashed on the couch between 10:30 pm and woke again at 3 a.m for an hour at the most. I thought I was wide awake, but ended up falling asleep on the couch again by 4 a.m and woke at 8 a.m. when my husband came down stairs for breakfast.

Today is going better. It’s going on 6 p.m. and I’m still awake. I’m still feverish and achy in a gut rot kind of way though.

What really killed me yesterday was that it was 1k Tuesday again. This time they were going to put out 5 $100 posts, and one $500 post. Judging by the leaderboard for the day I think they might have put out as many as 7 $100 posts. I missed all of them as I woozily lay on the couch with the lap top in front of me, watching all day (whenever I was awake that is) for big money writing opportunities to show up. The only one that I managed to see was the $500 posting opportunity at about 7:50 pm. I tried for it, but of course didn’t get it.

Oh well, them’s the breaks. I did get that excellent posting opportunity last Tuesday, and there’s two more 1K Tuesdays coming up this month. Maybe I’ll snag something on one of those.

Even though I still feel like crap today I’ve been working hard, trying to make up for not really doing much if any internet work over the weekend. Chris had a short day at work too and he’s been working on making some funds too. We actually broke a personal record today and we are both on the leaderboard at the same time. It might not last for the rest of the day, but as of right now, we’re both listed as being in the top 10 money earners for the day:

leaderboard41107.gif

That’s me at the top, yeahhhh, and Chris is second from the bottom in the second column. Cool huh? Together you can see that we’ve made over $200 US. We actually made a bit more than that too because we each did some work for other companies too. Whoohoo! Boooyahhh!

Being sick at home and not knowing when or if I’ll be going back to work sucks, but I can’t tell you how much I appreciate the companies that have enabled me to make some money from home, and the advertisers who’ve made that possible too of course. I always try to do a good job when I’m writing – paid or unpaid. I do hope that visitors to this site enjoy all of the posts and excuse my “feverish thoughts” from time to time too.

I think it might be time to go and lie down again. Hopefully I won’t fall asleep again! If you don’t hear from me for a while I’m still here, still reading … I’m just trying to feel better is all, and uh … I’m probably surfing your site in a weird and uncomfortable position while on the couch. LOL

Spring means mortgages – new and renewals!

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I was just thinking that it was about this time of year six years ago when Chris and I started hunting for, this, our very first home. I did most of the house hunting with our real estate agent as Chris worked really long hours on the other side of town back then and he couldn’t get home in time to go out with us. If we’d always scheduled viewings that included him we either would have seen far fewer houses or our hunt would have taken a lot longer. As it was, I went armed with a borrowed digital camera so I could show pictures to Chris of the houses that I saw, and it still took about two months to find this nice solid house.

Having said that, and knowing that many other people are out there house hunting right now since it’s Spring … the best time to buy and sell a house, I’d also imagine that for many home owners it’s also time to think about your Mortgage, and perhaps begin to hunt for companies that specialize in Remortgages. I don’t envy any of you!

I can remember what it felt like when we applied for our first mortgage. You have to do that first when you start house hunting so that you know what kind of price range you can look for in a home. It was at that time that I discovered I still had a few listings in my credit report, that if I hadn’t managed to clear up in time, would have caused us a lot of trouble in securing a mortgage. We might have had to hunt for one of those bad credit mortgages as a result.

Luckily it was stuff that I’d payed off in the past, but hadn’t been removed from my credit report. I got the report cleared and we got an estimate of what kind of mortgage range we could afford and we were off to house hunt, or rather as I explained above I was off house hunting.

Still the whole experience was nerve wracking. I don’t like borrowing money from people or banks, and I don’t like owing money either. Of course when it comes to something like a mortgage, unless you won the lottery chances are you are going to owe a lending institution some money if you want to get a house.

We really lucked out with our first mortgage. Interest rates were at an all time low and we decided to take a variable interest mortgage. You know how good our mortgage was? We paid zero interest the first 6 months and then half a percent below prime which at first was as low as only 2% interest each month. We saved a lot of money on interest in our first five years of owning the house!

Last year we had to remortgage the home since our five year mortgage contract was ending. I hummed and hawed about it for at least a month before I started to seriously look for institutions with good mortgage rates. Once I had some figures I called up our current mortgage broker and discussed renewing our mortgage and when I told our agent that I’d found lower prices with another company I ended up lowering our mortgage rate by a whole percentage.

I discovered that I was a better negotiator than I’d thought I was! Still … the nerves, the stress!

My advice to anyone that’s seeking a new mortgage or is about to remortgage their home is to do some research like I did, and also make sure that your credit report is clean too. As my husband would say – Knowledge is power. Use it well.

More klutzy than usual?

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Ok I’m not sure what’s going on but I’ve broken two thing so far this week. I wonder what else I’ll break?

Last Monday Chris and I went out. I had a doctors appointment and then we went shopping after that. I’d been drinking a coffee just before we left the house and I left my mug on the table beside my desktop monitor. When we finally got home many hours later I put my purse on the chair by the computer and one of the straps caught the mug that had been near the edge of the desk and made it crash to the floor.

It was my favorite mug!

I’d cracked it before and repaired it, but this time it was beyond repair.

Then yesterday morning when I got up I reached for my glass of water. I always have a glass of water beside the bed at night – old habit. The glass slipped from my hand when it was only two or three inches above my bedside table and shattered sending water and pieces of glass everywhere.

I guess they were more freak accidents than my standard klutzy moves, but it was pretty weird to have broken two things in one week.

I wonder what’s next. There’s gotta be a third. Any guesses?

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