All the news that's fit to tell

Things have been swirling around my life lately and, unfortunately, I haven't had an opportunity to sit down and tell you all about them.  So much to tell with so little time to do the telling.

I'll start with my job.  Whew!  It has been BUSY.  You may remember back on August 28th we had a hurricane down in my neck of the woods.  This particular hurricane brought A LOT of rain with it.  There wasn't a lot of damage here at the college where I work, but there was a lot of moisture.  A week after the hurricane we had A LOT of rain.  A LOT.  Along with the rain we had very humid conditions.  Frankly, the weather was crummy.  At this time I was in Reno, NV enjoying myself at the Tailhook convention and worrying about the patch in my roof leaking.  Here at the college, however, a different creature was taking hold in two of our residence halls.  MOLD.  And a lot of it.  Oh no???!!!! What will we do?  The first thing we did was move 350 kids out of their dorm rooms and set them up in hotels around this county and in one county over.  This is not exactly the "college experience" these kids were looking for, or for that matter, the experience their parents had paid for.  So, I spent a week handling crappy parent phone calls.  Exhausting.  Then, one alum came up with an idea.  His idea was this.  Why not float a cruise ship up to the college and let the kids live on it?  Brilliant.  So, the following week we began to jump through all the hoops involved to get a cruise ship docked near the college.  Fyi, there are a lot of hoops.  Oh, and btw, the folks that tell you the news found this a FASCINATING story.  There have been press all over the place.  My boss is the point man for most of the talking and showing of all stuff mold and cruise ship.  Needless to say, the phone is ringing off the hook.  After the press gets a hold of the story, guess what?  Sales people for every sort of mold remediation, air purification, cleaning, painting, you name it, have called and called and called.  Imagine 75-100 telemarketers calling you for five days in a row.  Exhausting.  There is a press conference going on right now and I hear the ship tooting it's horn and helicopters flying overhead taking pictures.  Wonderful.

So, I was tired.  In the midst of my tirednessness an opportunity presented itself.  My husband was invited to play in a FREE blackjack tournament in Atlantic City.  He didn't think he wanted to go.  He thought he should stay home and work on our tree debris and other repair projects we have to do.  But, I told him, it's going to RAIN all day Saturday.  Yippee!!!  Rain.  Let's go to AC.  He didn't win $35,000 at the black jack tournament, this time, but we did have a wonderful time.  I relaxed.  I napped.  I put a few items on eBay.  Wonderful.

Which leads me to tell you what has been going on with eBay.  Or, more to the point, PayPal.  It seems the government didn't feel it was getting its fair share of tax from my eBay sales.  So now, if you sell more than 200 items and make $20,000 you have to file a Form-1099 and pay income tax on your eBay sales.  This is new for 2011 and it's just another way Obama has his hand in my pocket to give out money to people who don't want to pay their own bills.  Btw, I'm selling stuff I've found in my closet.  I've already paid tax on these items.  Give me a break.  However, there is a bright side to this story.  My son has an eBay account and PayPal account.  I asked him if he would mind if I used his account to sell my stuff.  He balked, at first, but relented.  He knows I love eBaying and he showed his love for me by sharing his account.  Wonderful.

While we were in AC, or rather, immediately after we arrived in AC my son called to tell me he got in a car accident.  CRAP.  Poor guy, he's ok, his car is a total loss.  He had JUST gotten it back from being repaired from having a tree fall on it during hurricane Irene.  I think he had had it back for one week.  NUTS.  It was drizzling, he was driving a bit too fast for the conditions, the car in front of him stopped short, he hit his breaks, slid off the road and hit a telephone pole.  Well, when you hit a telephone pole there are two things you know for sure.  One thing, it's your fault.  Telephone poles don't jump out in front of your car.  You're going to get a ticket.  Second thing, your car is going to get wrecked.  Telephone poles aren't going anywhere.  They stay put and your car bends and breaks.  Oh yeah, and the air bags deploy (add $1000).  So now his car is gone.  Things haven't exactly been going his way.  On the up side, I didn't get angry or yell.  I asked him if he was ok and patiently waited for my husband to return from his massage to tell him the news.  Wonderful.

I think this just about catches everyone up on my wonderful life.  I'm staying positive.  I'm employed, albeit working a bit too hard just now, I'm back on eBay and LOVING it, and my son is OK and he's lucky.  His grandma had given him her car when she passed away.  :)