Elena 
Join Jen and the other Quicktakers over at the Conversion Diary.
1. All of my angst and worry about the bassoon sale on eBay was for naught. I was so afraid the buyer wouldn’t like it or would do a credit card charge back, escalate to Paypal claims – the whole thing. What I have learned in this experience is that eBay is definitely NOT a pro-seller place. The buyer can be dishonest and an outright liar, but in eBay’s eyes- they’re right simply by virtue of being the buyer. Lesson learned.
The results to us, as honest, long-time sellers were:
1. A negative feedback that reduced our rate from 100% to 96.7% because of the weird punitive way eBay wants to figure it.
2. A ding in our credit as I used the credit card to give her the refund – the card consequently lowered our limit.
3. More stress and anxiety on my part for the other three sales I made this month including re-selling the bassoon.
However, the new buyer LOVED the bassoon, was very happy with it and gave us great feedback. The first buyer was clearly a whack job so if you are an eBay seller you might want to block the buyer “piano-sound” who also has private feedback and resides in Florida.
2. If you’ve been looking at my links lately, you might notice that I have a lot of end of life/death links. I’ve been trying to gauge for myself how my mom is doing since getting someone to talk to me about her care is almost impossible. I truly see why people hate nursing homes. Even the best of them are still very cold and impersonal. I do think mom has some signs of the death process but I’m not sure she is aware of it. She is in a really bad mood and is easily offended by every little thing. One of the sites said that was one of the signs! I don’t do much talking when I visit nowadays. Yesterday she said that she had eaten all of her lunch, which is a rare occurrence. I said, “Good!” and she yelled at me for trying to goad her into eating more. So today I didn’t say much. I just let her talk. A typical visit is me going into her room to find her in bed sleeping. Doesn’t matter what time of day, this is usually how I find her. No t.v. and no books which is so unlike her! (but is another end-of-life type of symptom.) Then she tells me how mean the staff has been and all the little transgressions they have made (although most of it I think is just them trying to do their jobs). Then she’ll complain about Mr. Pete or my sister (which makes me wonder what she says to them about me!) and then she will either need the bed pan or something for pain. I don’t really look forward to our visits and I am feeling rather hopeless about the whole thing.
3. Calvin has been gone all week for his vacation with his girlfriend and her family. The mom has been great about keeping me updated on what was going on. Calvin did call me for my birthday, and today he called to wish Rosie a happy birthday (although truthfully she is oblivious that she had a birthday this week – we are going to celebrate tomorrow). I missed him, but not as much as I thought I would. So I guess I’m okay with him moving out if he wants to. On the other hand if he doesn’t move out I’d like to start charging a little rent because I think that would be good. Not a lot. Maybe $100 or so, negotiable.
4. I got on the ball and tried to find a school for Sam to take the PSAT test next fall. The PSAT is held only once a year, in early October for Juniors (although 10th graders can take it too). And if you do well on it you are eligible for fabulous prizes scholarships. My local high school seemed oblivious to the fact that there were homeschoolers in existence. They told me basically no, they would never consider having an outside student to come in and take the PSAT there. This might be a good place to insert that the College Board encourages schools to include homeschoolers. This school has a 79% graduation rate, so I wonder how many students there are even going to take this test? Anyway I also tried the board of education and they gave me some rigmarole about what a risk they would take to allow my homeschooled student to take a test in one of the local high schools because of the insurance… huh? I did point out that as a property tax payer maybe they could, you know, LET ME GET SOME BENEFIT FROM MY EDUCATION DOLLAR BY LETTING MY KID PUT HIS BUTT IN A DESK FOR A COUPLE HOURS TO TAKE THE STUPID TEST.
I called a local Catholic High School too, which was equally as negative. I did get success with a Christian High School who said they would be happy to have him and to call them back in September. So I guess I can cross that off of my to do list – at least until September.
5. So I mentioned Rosie had a birthday. She was 4 on the 3rd, but she doesn’t know it yet. It’s so nice that at this age her birthday is whenever I tell her it is! She wants a cake with her name on it and a flower, little stuffed doggies, and some Polly pockets, maybe a Barbie.
6. The schools are out around here. That means I’ll have kids banging on my door at all hours, from now on. My kids, however will be doing school and lest you think I’m being mean – they had 7 weeks of part-time homeschooling after a 3 week spring break because of grandma’s illness. So don’t feel too sorry for them!
7. The one good thing about putting the BlogHer ads on the blog is that I feel that blogging isn’t just a time waster! I might actually be providing some income (from BlogHer and Amazon) just by keeping my blog updated. I have a post about homeschool reading to get up this weekend and I also have one brewing about late term abortions for tomorrow or Sunday as well.
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