its nearing the end of the month and i’m kicking myself a little bit for falling out of the routine i tried to set up for myself at the beginning of the year. i will jump back into it in feb though, as i plan to stick with this stuff. mostly i got sick and so i got lazy and i haven’t been doing what i should be doing every day. goofing off is bad!

the other day i was bored and looking at old website stuff i have on a disk. i found old layouts from the domain i used to own a few years ago. it made me miss it a bunch! i even did a domain name check and found that its still available! maybe when i can get a decent paycheck i’ll buy it again

still working on those ideas for my videogame blogging. i looked into streaming gameplay on a site like justin.tv but i don’t have a good upload speed so my game is lagged. so i guess lets play style videos are my only way of doing things. no live game casts from me now i just have to figure out what game i want to record me playing. THAT is the hard part.

oh yeah and i need to finish that layout gah!

because we live in such an out of the way area, to go to a big store or somewhere with specific stuff, means we have to spend a lot of time in the car, and a lot of gas to get there. after we got our bank accounts figured out and paypal going, mom and i have become a bit addicted to shopping online. its easy and convenient and even though we have to wait on the item to get to us in the mail, it saves us the trip and gas money.

i found a very cool site that has helped us find stuff more easily on the web. ShopWiki allows you to search every store website from one easy location with just a simple search term. its set up like a wiki, so if you know how to use those (and they are super simple to use) then you will have no trouble with this site. and you don’t have to worry about it being just for the US either, they have sites for the UK, Australia, and a few other european countries.

not sure what to buy? shopwiki has buying guides to help you decide on the right product for you! and since its just a search engine, and not an actual shop, you have nothing to lose, and can pick shops on the search results that you are familiar with and feel you can trust with your money and information.

we’ve been trying this site for a little while now and found quite a few items that we plan to save up for. did you find anything cool when you searched? let me know in the comments

my uncle is supposed to be helping us pay for my mom’s auto repair, since he has a bit of money now. i really wish we could just get her a new car like a Toyota Camry or something, but she likes the big suv she has now so we’re trying to fix it.

it has something wrong with something underneath, i honestly cannot remember what its called. i don’t know much about cars, but its something that is dangerous and she can’t drive up the mountain because it might break? anyway its no good and i’m worried about her breaking down somewhere and not being able to get home. its also caused her to fail inspection which means she can’t drive anywhere that she needs to go for meds and doctors appointments (thankfully some friends have been taking her around but that’s not always reliable)

it will be our luck that the thing will get fixed and she’ll have it for 2 days and then we’ll see the check engine light. it seems like when we get one thing fixed another thing breaks. i guess that’s just the price you pay for buying used cars!

my mom is so idle now a days after she got sick, and i wish i could come up with some activities for her to do because she always seems unhappy with sitting around. i’ve taught her a few things on the computer and how to do different stuff on the net but i think she would prefer something more her taste.

my mom used to really love gardening and i remember when i was a kid she was always planting and weeding flowers and stuff outside around the large tree in our front yard and in a small garden on one edge of our property. she can’t do that sort of thing now, because she can’t bend down for a long time and even minor work seems to be stressful on her body. i’m thinking of getting her a couple of window box planters, so she can enjoy some flowers without having to go dig and be on the ground where she can’t get up easily.

i think it would also make our place look a bit nicer with flowers! its been years since i saw her plant anything. we still have tiger lillies that bloom around the tree every year but she used to have a lot of different flowers and they were really pretty. it would be awesome to have window boxes full of beautiful flowers on the two big windows on the front of our house.

window flower boxes don’t look that hard to install so i would probably be able to get them put up without much hassle, or if i can’t maybe our neighbor can help us out. they have some on their windows as well so they probably know how to install them!

have you ever been to a karaoke party? you know, the ones with the karaoke machines? i know now a days everyone probably uses videogames like karaoke revolution or singstar but i remember when i was a teen, our high school had a karaoke party after prom one year, and let me tell you, that was the most hilarious thing i have ever seen. i remember my friend michelle and i sang “people are strange” and i suck at following the lyrics on the screen, so it was mostly her singing and me mumbling along.

its surprising just how popular karaoke has become. there are tons of karaoke music cds now and its even been on MTV! there’s even portable karaoke machines out there so you can have a party anywhere. i never really enjoyed the karaoke videogames myself, but that’s because they judge you based on your overall vocal tone and not really how you sing the songs. regular karaoke doesn’t judge you at all of course, so its more fun and laid back and you can have a blast laughing at each other and your mess ups.

i’d love to have a real karaoke party sometime. of course i don’t have a machine or the videogames but i could probably buy some karaoke songs online and just sing to them with my computer. not as much fun of course but it could work.

i remember when i was a kid we used to have a big tree with a ton of presents under it. now as a grown-up i have small tree (not put up yet) with no presents under it. i have one present for mom, and she has one present for me. i miss having the money to give presents to my friends and family during the holiday.

i think one of my new years resolutions will be trying to find a job. sure the paid blogging and tweeting has been good for some quick cash but i’d like to have some steady income and that just doesn’t pay the bills for me. i’d still love to find a job that i can do from home. i really should just put myself out there as a graphics designer. i know people making money just being Logo Designers and that’s something i could probably do, after a bit of practice. i’m a little rusty when it comes to graphics design, but i learn fast.

until then the tree will remain a bit bare underneath.

i wrote down my wishlist but only got a couple of responses so i was curious what you guys want for xmas! i saw some great gift ideas on the wishlists that were in my comments and it makes me want to add more to mine

some of the ideas included donating to charity,personal web hosting, basic stuff like blankets and stuff for the home, etc. my list was a bit out there, but i couldn’t come up with anything basic i need. so all my ideas were frivolous extras that i can’t get for myself. i should have thought about the charity donation thing though. that would be an awesome gift too.

my mom just wants a kindle, and that’s what i’m planning to get her. i’ve gotten a few donations already! i am blown away by the kindness of strangers who have stepped up to help me get this gift for her. if you’d like to help, the chip in for her is in the sidebar! xmas still has bad memories attached to it, because of last year with dad’s death, but i’m trying to do everything i can to make things better this year during the holiday season. so any help would be very appreciated.

i meant to put this on my wish list but i forgot until just now! i would love to have some funny tees from a cool place like supergoodtees.com. i usually wear mens t shirts in extra large, and i like to collect ones with snarky sayings on them yeah that’s a british site but there are of course ones you can get in america as well.

yes i’m still saving up for my own pair of glasses frames from zenni optical. probably going to get some when i get my money for xmas if i can get all my information straightened out. when i went to go see what new frames they had i realized, hey! the site changed, and it looks like some of the prices went down as well!

the new search features on the site are great and they have another new feature that lets you try on the pair of glasses by taking a photo of yourself and uploading it. then you can see what they will look like on you, which is great, because sometimes glasses look really cute just sitting there, but they look funky on your face.

as much as i love those colourful frames with the rhinestones, i’m probably going to go for something more practical like these:

what do you think?

maybe i’ll get the black and green ones with rhinestones for sunglasses