Oh, for crying in a bucket...

Well, I signed the lease to get the store today, and it was in HORRID shape. The carpet and tile floors are CAKED in dirt from seven years of neglect, and the whole place reeks of urine, especially the storage area. I don't know if they cleaned it when they moved out, but it sure as heck didn't look like they even tried. Fortunately, my partner and I aren't afraid of a little (okay A LOT OF) hard work. We tried using pine-sol on the tile floors, but that just made them smell better. Surprisingly enough, what worked the best was scrubbing bubbles! I brought a can from home on impulse (I brought a lot of cleaning products with me when we went over there, from febreeze to rubbing alcohol), and when the pine-sol was failing and Steve was getting discouraged, I had a wild hair and sprayed the nastiest tile I could find with scrubbing bubbles. In less than a minute, it was a LOT cleaner, and we got a ton of dirt up off of it. That tile took a couple of treatments, but it looked 1000% better when we were done. As a result, we decided to go to Sam's and buy some more scrubbing bubbles. We also wanted a sponge mop, but Sam's didn't have any, so we went to Target and got a Mr. Clean mop there. It looks like it'll do a good job, but we'll see.

Anyway, Tom's volunteered to help us get the new store set up. He got fired from his job today because he was holiday help, and we're all pretty pissed about that state of affairs. I know that the economy is bad and all of that jazz, but Tom is a fantastic worker, and he really knows his shit. He's also a master of tactics, and he's a great go-to guy from strategy advice. If I had the money to pay him, I'd hire him in a heartbeat...but I don't, so it'll be a little while before we could even offer him a spot. Hell, it'll be awhile before I can even afford to pay myself for working there full-time!

And so that brings us back to my own job-hunting woes. The temp agency keeps on jerking me around about assignments. The only thing that they offered me that would be a sure temp spot is in an area where there's a 99% chance that I'll get stabbed while I'm on the bus. While I have no issue with tempting fate as far as riding a bus is concerned, Steve would rather have me and the baby in one piece, and he doesn't think the pay is worth the risk. In addition, they never called me back to tell me what hours I would be working, so I'm sure that they gave the assignment to someone who is willing to risk her life for minor change. If so, more power to them. I want the job that pays better and is in a safe area of town near a bus line where I won't risk stabbity death for being a pale-skinned, pregnant female.

Fortunately, a friend of mine turned me onto WAHM.com. It seems that they've got real WAHMs who earn enough money to pay their bills and stay home. I'm still fudging on cover letters and nervous about phone interviews, but I have the voice and manner for telephone work, and I have the skills to do a damn fine job at data entry. I've applied for a few open positions so far, and I have hope that I'll do well working at home.

Anyway, I got my first paying assignment for Kasamba.

Unfortunately, they won't send me my money until I get a minimum of $50. For some reason, they also took almost $4 of my $13.14 charge for my services as a copy editor. I'm only going to be getting $9.20 of that, and it really pisses me off. Still, it's better than all of the work I did for that lady who contacted me through facebook. I edited her article, communicated with her back and forth about the changes she wanted to make, and then, when I finished working on it for her, I never heard from her again. I even emailed her and asked if she was dissatisfied with my work, but she never wrote me back...and that's REALLY annoying.

Speaking of consultations, here are a couple of the widgets for my Kasamba virtual office (assuming the HTML works right):





Blah. I'm tired from all of the cleaning and BS today. I don't feel like I accomplished much, but I did get some networking and word-of-mouth advertising going on. I also feel like I've got some ideas to help get the store off the ground...

But now, it is time for bed. I had more to say, but my brain died...