I'll cry if I want to...

Some say turning 30 is a big deal. It's the start of a new decade of your life. You have officially been an adult for 10 years. I fail to see the significance. Age is just a number to me. It means nothing. Supposedly these are the best years of my life.

Part of my life is going great. I have an amazing boyfriend who always makes me laugh even when I don't want to and has been extremely supportive throughout this awful time in my life. We have a beautiful little mobile home that we are slowly making our own. I wouldn't trade him or our life together for anything.

The rest of my life is not, and runs the risk of jeopardizing the only thing going well. He deserves so much better, someone who can keep up.

Ninety nine point nine percent of mornings when I wake up, I feel like crap. The Idiopathic Hypersomnia causes me to never feel rested, no matter how I much or how long I sleep. I get dizzy randomly for no apparent reason. Don't even get me started with my digestive system. If I don't eat regularly, I get either crazy angry or weak and shaky. Everyone else I know has no problem if they skip a meal once in a while. Of course, when I go to the doctor, all my test results are normal. I even made a real effort to start exercising. No improvement. On paper I am technically healthy, so why the *explicative* don't I feel it?

I am terrified as I feel so awful all the time that I will never be able to enjoy life; that feeling so awful day in and day out will never improve. I was hoping finally getting a diagnosis would help get me back on track, but the medication causes just as many problems as it solves. Is it better to be tired and sleepy all the time or dizzy and anxious?  I can't live with either of those. I want to function.

I'm trying to find a job. I want to be able to pay off my debt, contribute my share to the household, and be a productive member of society. I don't want to be a leech. The job search is going awful. There are plenty of local jobs I've applied to, but they always want someone with experience. Who's going to hire someone who used to drive a school bus and had to stop because they have a medical condition?

I just want to have more days where I feel good than days I feel bad. Is that really too much to ask? I can't keep going on like this. I don't know what to do anymore. Lately all I feel like doing is crying, but that won't solve anything either.

:'(

Spring Cleaning Purge #2: Clothing and Accessories

The next area of the house I tackled was my clothing. My side of the closet was overflowing. My dresser was stuffed to the point of breaking, and under the bed was 3 of the large underbed plastic storage containers full of clothing. That is just too much to handle. My boyfriend has a small dresser and a smaller section of closet, yet has everything he needs. I want to have less.

So out everything came from all of its hiding places; the bedroom closet, the spare closet, under the bed, the dresser drawers. I made a HUGE pile in the bedroom. The pic doesn't even do it justice as the whole queen size bed was covered, plus stuff was still inside the plastic bins.

I tackled the hanging clothes first. I had already pared down a good amount of those when we moved a year ago, so I decided not to get rid of anything. As my career future is up in the air, I am hanging onto a lot of dressier clothes that I rarely wear, but would be perfect for an office job. If it turns out I can't work, then I can go through them again. As for the rest, I tried on a lot of my wardrobe. If it didn't fit or I didn't like the fit, it went away, easy as that.

I had a lot of duplicates or extremely similar items. Somehow I acquired over 10 blankets (including 2 snuggies). He also has his blankets he likes. As we live in NH and the winters can get cold, and we don't have a generator, we do need a few more blankets than the average household, but more than 10 is a bit excessive. I got rid of 6 of them (including the 2 snuggles).

After all was said and done, I had 3 big garbage bags full, 2 medium garbage bags, and a small bag of winter accessories to donate. I also had 2 out of 3 underbed plastic storage bins completely empty, as well as a large stack of shoebox sized plastic storage empty. Freedom!

I used to keep many seasonal clothes under the bed as there was no longer room in my dresser drawers, but between getting rid of items I never wore or didn't like, I was able to put all except my middle of summer clothes in the drawers!

As part of the Konmari method mentioned in a previous post, folding is an important part of the organizational process. Now, when I open my drawers, I can see everything I have in that drawer at a glance. It's great! I know exactly what I have and I won't just grab one of the same couple of shirts from the top of the pile.

Let's hope that I can keep it this way!

Spring Cleaning Purge #1: Health and Beauty Products

I have been on a weird, pre-spring cleaning rampage in my house lately. Even though we only moved in a year ago, I still had too much stuff laying around. One of my major areas to tackle was the bathroom. Over the years I have amassed a huge number of travel sized, sample sized products. I pared them down when I moved, but still kept a large number, thinking well if we ever have guests over unexpectedly, I will be prepared. Yeah, ok. I think his son has been over once at Christmastime. I am just not the entertaining sort.

So with all this free time on my hands, it was time to purge. I took everything out of both bathrooms and placed it in a huge mess on the bedroom floor. I also dug out all of my old Ipsy pouches. Scary mess huh?

When I first sat down to start I was like "What the heck, where do I even begin?" I started with my makeup (which you can't see in this pic, it's to the side in front of the cute grey kitty on a mission) I have a 8 drawer plastic organizer and a drawer in the bathroom that was full of makeup. If you know me in real life, you would be like WTF? as I am rarely seen wearing makeup. Don't ask. It was a phase.



Between coupon savings, my subscription to Ipsy (which btw is an awesome monthly makeup subscription box if you are looking for one!), and winning contests I had quite a bit of new, unopened unused makeup. Now what to do with it all? I dug through, saving items I had used or enjoy using. Everything else...gone. What to do with it? I didn't really feel right about selling it, so I thought I should donate it to a women's shelter! These women have often been through a lot, and a little makeup may help brighten their day.

I went through all my travel size shampoo, deodorant, lotions etc which once again were nearly all free samples. I kept a few as my boyfriend and I are hopefully going on a motorcycle trip this summer, but the rest are going. Once again, I felt a women's shelter would be a perfect place to donate these too. I used my old Ipsy pouches to make up little kits with shampoo, conditioner, lotion, and body wash. All the extras will be donated as well.

As for the dreaded time of the month products, I had a huge supply of tampons (which I never use) that were all free samples. Once again, great thing to donate!

How did I get so many free samples? I will go into detail on another post (and link it here) but a quick summary is websites that specialize in samples, Facebook, and on-product packaging promotions.

Spring Cleaning: Preparing for the Purge

As I have so much free time on my hands, and I am sick of every storage in the house overflowing, I have decided to do a whole house purge, one category at a time.

I thought it might be fun to do a mini-series of blog posts. I figure I will start with my tips and methods of purging.

For me, getting rid of things is difficult. I seem to have a tendency towards hoarding-like behaviors. The hardest thing for me is seeing that I spent money on an object that I will either sell for a huge loss on an online yard sale (see my post about that), donate, or just simply throw away. I hate wasting money. I have never been well off financially, always struggling paycheck to paycheck. I mistakingly ran up some credit card debt. I see items I'm getting rid of that I am technically still paying for. Lesson learned. I am much, much more careful about what I buy.

After a brief bit of research on organizational techniques, something that stood out to me was the Konmari method of organizing. Let me say I did not read the book, although it does look very interesting. I simply googled the method and used pieces of it to help me organize my possessions.

The Sleepy Cat Organizational/Decluttering Method:

1. Pick ONE group of items to organize (Clothing, Health and Beauty, Toys, Craft Supplies, etc)
2. Gather all the items of the same group together in a common place. The center of a room works well
3. Pick up each and every item and look at it. Try it on if necessary. Ask yourself the following questions
1. Do you like this item? Or Do You Need this Item?
2. Have I used this item recently? Or Can I realistically see myself using this item? Seriously, be realistic. It doesn't help if it's a maybe if a certain situation arises that hasn't arisen in the past year....
4. Make FOUR Piles (Keep, Sell, Donate, Trash)
1. Keep - Self explanatory
2. Sell - Items in excellent condition
3. Donate - Items definitely useable, maybe not brand name or not worth much
4. Trash- Destroyed items, Unsanitary items
5. Put everything away. Everything should have a home now. If you use the item, put it back where it belongs to keep the clutter down. 

One thing I really liked about the Konmari method is to put everything together in one place to sort it. Take all the items out of the drawers, boxes, closets etc and put them in one central place. It seems overwhelming at first, seeing a huge pile of stuff you have to go through, but it is worth it. That way you don't miss anything and you can see if you have duplicates or even more of the same item. It also makes it really nice to put your newly discovered items into empty places. A complete fresh start.

The main idea of the Konmari method is to ask yourself "Does this item bring you joy?" If the answer is no, then away it goes. While I think this concept is awesome, it was a little bit hard to do for me right now. I am in limbo as far as what my career path is going to bring. I have to keep enough office clothes and casual clothes until I get my work life figured out.

Follow along as I make our house more organized and less cluttered!

Idiopathic Hypersomnia: Journey to a Diagnosis

I had been a school bus driver for the past 7 years. On Friday, I was informed by my boss and human resources that I was to resign my position due to my recent diagnosis of Idiopathic Hypersomnia (IH) and my admitting to symptoms that could be dangerous; mainly the excessive daytime sleepiness. I was shocked and devastated. I knew my time as a bus driver was coming to an end, I needed more steady/stable hours, and the long days were really taxing on me. It was a daily struggle.  That day I was devastated. I had lost my job. Due to the reasons I had to resign my other bus driving job at the local city bus company. My DOT medical card was no longer valid without my neurologist signing off. I spent a lot of time thinking, and talking to my wonderful, supportive boyfriend, and came to the decision that maybe this wasn't such a bad thing to happen. I could not have lived with myself if I had ever hurt someone else because I was too sleepy to be driving a bus.

So what is this condition that ruined my career? Idiopathic Hypersomnia. Two big words that basically mean no matter how much sleep I get overnight, I do not feel rested or refreshed, and I can be insanely sleepy during the day. As far back as I can remember, I have been a tired person. This past summer, things really started to deteriorate. I was falling asleep as a passenger on a motorcycle. Not a good situation. It was time to dig into why I am 29 years old and completely exhausted all the time no matter how much sleep I got at night.

I went to my primary care doctor. They tested my blood, they tested my brain, they tested just about everything there is to test non-invasively. I had low Vitamin D levels. Even after a supplement and recheck, there was no change in my symptoms. I was finally referred to a sleep neurologist who ordered an overnight sleep study. All those wires later and an uncomfortable night in a comfortable Sleep Number bed (totally check those out, I would get one if I didn't have my awesome memory foam bed!) I got more normal test results. At this point when I hear "Everything came back normal" I want to cry. Something had to be causing my exhaustion. I had even tried going to a endocrinologist. She was awesome, she did in depth thyroid testing, adrenal and pituitary testing as well. Normal. I think I did cry after those results.

The sleep neurologist decided to redo my sleep study and follow it with a Multiple Sleep Latency Test (MSLT). More strange medical words. The MSLT follows an overnight sleep study so they can make sure you get a decent amount of sleep the night before. You are then left in a room all day (I had wifi and cable TV), given a nap opportunity every 2 hours for a total of 5 naps. The time it takes you to fall asleep and the level of sleep you reach in the timeframe is what helps determine your diagnosis. I fell asleep in all of the naps in an average of 6 minutes, after a "normal" night's sleep. See, I am not actually crazy, well at least in that aspect, I am THAT tired. Could you sleep a full night then fall sleep 5x during the day?

Eventually, I got my diagnosis of Idiopathic Hypersomnia because they ruled out basically everything else that could cause me to be so tired and unrefreshed. I did not have sleep apnea, I did not have narcolepsy. I did not have any "common" sleep disorders. I am just plain exhausted for no reason the doctor can find. There is no cure and no FDA approved medications. There are medications that I can be prescribed to promote daytime wakefulness. I am now trying a second one as the first one did not work and actually made me feel worse than just sleepy.

Now I am a state of limbo. I have applied for nearly 20 jobs and the only thing I ever hear is someone else was selected. I'm waiting to find out if I get unemployment, which I hate to do, but I have to have something for income, I have bills. Everyday now I sit home, filling with anxiety about those bills and not having the income or the savings to pay for them. I have decent credit, I don't want to ruin it. I am so lost, so hopeless. Right now it feels like I am completely and permanently screwed. When I apply to jobs I have to put down why I left my previous job, if I put down financial gain, why would I quit before I had anything else? If I put down medical, they will automatically think I am sick all the time and miss work (which I don't do).

Idiopathic Hypersomnia sucks.

DIY Oops Turned Out Awesome!

I had been looking for a jewelry box for a while now, you would not believe how hard it is to find one in stores! One day, while waiting to meet someone to sell one of my Online Yard Sale items, I wandered into my local Kmart. They had a huge clearance on jewelry boxes and I found this black and silver one. It wasn't my style as far as colors, but I liked all the drawers and the cute little top compartment. Originally it was priced at $100, but it was on a shelf marked 75% off. Twenty five dollars later, it was mine.

When I got home, I decided to paint it brown. I taped off the felt and handles, sanded and cleaned the black veneer and started painting with some acrylic craft paint and a foam brush.  The paint wasn't sticking very well. I figured several light coats and I'd be good to go. It would be a solid brown color. Well.....it didn't quite work out that way. I did a few more coats of paint. Still streaky. Huh. But then I started looking at it. The way the black was showing in lines through the brown paint looked like woodgrain. Interesting. So I decided to go with it.

I painted all the visible surfaces with the foam brush, ensuring the "streaks" were all going the same way and were consistent. I untaped the felt and the handles and did a bit of touch up work. The silver handles weren't really working for me and the look I was going for, so out came the sandpaper to rough them up and then the black nail polish.

As the acrylic paint dried to a very matte finish, I used a satin finish spray clear coat to bring up the shine and protect the paintwork.

Who would have thought a mistake would have turned out so lovely?

Extra Spending Money

Money has always been tight for me. I am in the process of finding a new job/career as my diagnosis of Idiopathic Hypersomnia has ended my ability to drive buses. I have had to be creative in ways to make some extra spending money.

Through a lot of trail and error and research, I have narrowed down what I think are the five best Online Survey sites. These sites have a high likelihood of qualifying and pay "well". I will forwarn you that you will not get rich, as I said, this is a way to earn some extra spending money. Personally, I will complete surveys throughout the year and cash out in November, in time to do my Christmas shopping. Most of the links provided are referral links, I will get credit if you sign up for the sites and complete at least one survey!

5 Best Online Survey Sites

1. Epoll  This site has a minimal time commitment. You only get maybe one survey a week, but you will always qualify and be rewarded for your answers. The surveys don't take a lot of your time to complete, and the points add up fast. You can cash out for PayPal or various popular gift card options.

2. Opinion Outpost  My favorite thing about this site is how quickly you can earn. You get multiple survey invites each week, and if you don't qualify to complete the survey, you get to enter to win either points or sweepstakes entries. You can cash out for Paypal or other gift options.

3. Valued Opinions I find I have excellent success getting into the surveys for this site, and they pay excellent, at least $1 per survey, often more! You can cash out for Visa and Amazon gift cards as well as other sites.

4. SurveySavvy Survey Savvy is hit or miss. They give you many opportunities to qualify but it's less than half the time that I actually do. When you do qualify, they pay decent. They will send you a check.

5. Opinion Square I am relatively new to this site, but so far I enjoy it. If you don't qualify for a survey, you earn tokens to play whatever game of the season they have, right now it's a slot game. You always win points, and not always the minimum. They offer a lot of redemption items from actual products to gift cards.

Honorable Mentions

American Consumer Opinion  A decent site that rewards you for completing the pre-screeners.
MySurvey So many survey opportunities, however it seems hard to actually qualify.
Ipsos iSay Lots of opportunities, but I tend to run into fustrating technical difficulties. You may have better success on a Windows computer.


Cashback

Another awesome way to earn some extra money on online purchases you are making anyways! I am a HUGE fan of Ebates. You may have seen it advertised on TV and went yeah right....sounds too good to be true. Well, I'm here to tell you that it isn't. And they aren't even paying/rewarding me to say that!

There are two ways to get your cash back,  first is to go to Ebates and pick the store you are shopping at and it will automatically add your cash back shortly after you complete your transaction. The other way is to add the toolbar, that way you will never have to worry about missing cash back from your favorite store.

The picture to the right is an actual screen shot of my account info, and I honestly have earned that much money on purchases I was making anyway! You would be surprised how quickly even 2% cash back can add up. Every little bit helps. Each quarter, they will either send a check or make a PayPal deposit.

Hopefully these sites can help you earn a little extra!

Spring Cleaning and Online Yard Sales

As we live in a mobile home, space is limited. Even though I got rid of a lot of unnecessary things when I moved, I still feel overwhelmed with clutter and junk. My craft room is, well now was, one of the biggest problems. I had all sorts of craft supplies that I haven't touched since we moved in. Well it finally came time to get rid of the stuff closing in around me.

In order to cut down on the clutter, I needed to get rid of items I don't like anymore, don't use, haven't touched in a year, etc. I went through my various containers one by one, grouping items into two groups, sell and keep.

My favorite way to get rid of unnecessary items is through my local Facebook Yard Sale groups and Varage Sale. Find your local groups by typing "Yard Sale" into the Facebook search bar.

My tips for Online YardSale Safety and Success:

1. Price your items reasonably. This is a yard sale and people are looking for bargains. Start a bit more than you expect to get so you can reduce. 
2. Join more than one group. You get different people with different interests. Something that has no interest in one group may be a hot ticket in another!
3. Write a good description. Keep it simple and precise, but do make sure to disclose any damage. Include the town (or area of city) you are in. 
4. Bump your post/album at different times. Write in the comments section of your item/album the word "bump" to bring it to the top, or use the comment section to change the price. Do it at different times as people browse Facebook at all hours 
5. MOST IMPORTANT Always meet in a public place! Arrange a time and place to meet through the Private Message section rather than in the comments where everyone can see. On Facebook, regularly check your "Other" messages in your inbox (Click upper left corner, next to Inbox) as messages from people you don't know usually end up in there. I always pick a larger parking lot where there is a lot of traffic. I tell the person I am meeting the color/make/model of my car, and expect the same from them so I know who to expect. 

As far as payment goes, cash is king. Don't accept checks.You can even get yourself setup to take credit cards! If you have or sign up for a PayPal account, you can get a Paypal Here personal credit card reader for your cell phone. There are other personal credit card readers out there, I chose this one as it has a low fee (2.7%) and I already had a PayPal account. I have yet to use it, but I keep the option open. It did not cost me anything.