I have been selling my books on amazon for a week or so now, and it’s kinda nice getting back *most* of what I paid for the books I’m not going to use again….
The real story begins last week when I sent out two books that were ordered at nearly the same time. I had to go to Meijer first to get some bubble envelopes to send the books in. Before I left I laid out the two books on the table. I printed out the packing slips and put them in the front cover. As soon as I got back from the store I put the books in the envelopes and sealed them up, making sure I knew which was which and that everything was in it’s place. Then I went over to my trusty computer machine and printed up some shipping “labels” to tape on the envelopes. Next step: to the post office. The package shipped out without any problems and I quickly went back to business as usual. Here’s the really fun part: apparently I shipped the books to the wrong people! I got an email a few days later saying “Ummmm, I got a book, but not my book. What now?” (quoting paraphrased to protect the innocent). So now I’m waiting for both books to come back “Return to Sender” before I can ship out the book to the one guy who did not cancel his order. Neat.
Now for the “+ a near miss” part (I sure am liking the double quotes today). I sold another two books since then, one going out on Monday (props to the wife for taking care of that for me), and the other one going out today. The only interesting part of this story is that on my bike ride back from the campus “post office”, I was at an intersection with a “don’t cross” pedestrian signal. I looked up at the traffic signal since the cars were stopped and noticed that the light was red. I proceeded to cross. I guess the guy in the far lane just didn’t realize that I was making a break for it because I swear there was a mere inches (6-12 maybe?) between the front of his car and the back tire of my bike. Whew.
My sister wrote a great post on Sunday that helps to begin the explanation of why I am the way I am (and she is the way she is). We both have the tendency of communicating our negative thoughts and feelings. It’s not that we don’t have positive thoughts or feelings. It’s actually the opposite; we have mostly positive thoughts/feelings. The issue is that our ingrained way of dealing with those negative thoughts/feelings is by verbally expressing them.
So to anyone that thinks of my sister and/or I as negative people, we’re sorry that it seems that way.
So, I’m putting a little more effort into this posting thing. Mostly because I feel stupid having a blog that I never post to, and partly because I just feel like it.
It was a few weeks ago, but I had a seriously good time in Chicago with sister. I spent way too much on food, but it was all soooo good. It was really great to spend some time with just me and my sister. We actually got to have some good conversation that went below surface level. Nothing really crazy happened while I was there (except I did miss my train back home and had to catch a later one, but there weren’t any incidents with that). We did find a really cool bookstore that had like more bookshelf space than it had walking space (and floor to ceiling books, I didn’t know it was possible till I saw it).
Classes are going well as usual. I’m mostly enjoying them, although they are still in the beginning stages so it’s hard to tell how I’ll feel by the end.
Well, I think that’s it.
Sadly enough winter break has been over for a few days now, and I did not write even a single blog post.
The trick is deciding what is enough without making it too much. If I write about every little thing, it seems like it would get boring in 5 seconds. If I only write about the big stuff, then it takes too much time to write….
So in an effort to try something rather than just not write, I will say this: my heater broke sometime yesterday. Kristie and I got home around 1am last night (after watching Benjamin Button, which I thought was good), only to find that our house was a mere 57 degrees. The temperature kept inching lower until it was 48 degrees when I awoke at 8:15. Luckily Jim Horn is a wonderful and magical heating guy, because he made it out in less than an hour. I’m not sure how long it took to fix the thing since I left for class just after he arrived. The happy ending: everything is hunky dory in the heating dept.