The Shoestring Just Snapped

I had a manicure for you on Monday.

I couldn't post it because both of my computers quit on me Sunday night. My desktop has a fried wireless card, and my laptop is so old that it freezes every time I open Firefox now.

This post is coming to you via a borrowed computer.

I don't know how many of you follow my Twitter, or my personal blog. For the most part I've tried to keep my personal problems off of the internet, but I have to ask for some help.

We are in dire straights. My roommate's hours have been cut so severely that we don't know if we'll be able to make rent. All of the household bills--electric, water, food, etc--have fallen to me, on top of my personal bills. On January 1, I came home and discovered the fuel tank that heats our home was empty--two weeks earlier than expected. The minimum order was $586. I also became ill this month and that required a doctor's visit and some very expensive medication. I'm better now, but not 100%. I am clinging to my last sick day, terrified to use it when I'm just not feeling well, for fear that I will not have it if I actually become ill again.

We have heat for this month, but we don't know about next. We don't qualify for heating assistance, because fuel oil is not run by the Public Utility Commission, but by private companies, none of which have a year-round payment plan. We don't qualify for food assistance, because on a yearly basis we make too much--which doesn't help for the four months of the year when Missouri makes almost nothing at all. I have a steady income, but it barely supports me; it cannot support us both.

We don't have much, but this link will take you to my blog sale. All prices include shipping anywhere in the continental US.

What you see for sale there is basically my entire polish collection. There are some books, too, an ipod, and a nook, as well as a few other items. Most of my yarn stash will be posted this weekend. Please have a look, and if something catches your eye, please email me at KnotMagickKnitter (at) yahoo (dot) com with "Blog Sale" in the subject. Even if you don't purchase anything, please spread the word.

Missouri and I are also published authors. Her bibliography can be found here, and mine is here.

I'm calling most of my student loan companies today to try and get a one or two month deferment.
If they aren't willing to work with me, then our next step is canceling the internet, which means that I won't have a connection at home or at work, and I do not have a smart phone.

I don't know what the fate of this blog is. If the polishes don't sell, then we lose our internet. If they do, then I'll be down to half a dozen of my favorite colors, none of which are particularly well suited to nail art.

Please, anything you can do would be a help.

The Ghost of Wednesdays Past

Over the past couple of months, I've done a lot of thinking, and I've come to several realizations. Basically what they come down to, is that I will no longer be doing Wednesday posts on this blog.

I love blogging. I love nail art. But nails are just a hobby for me. They're something fun that I do when I need a creative break, and something that brightens my day when I'm at work. I don't do this professionally, and I probably never will.

What I do do professionally, I would like to change. And over the past six months it has become increasingly clear that if I'm every going to get out of my current job, it's going to be by going into business for myself. After five years in retail, no professional experience, and graduate work that is completely useless where I currently life, most potential employers just toss my resume aside as soon as it crosses their desk.

In order to work for myself (i.e. writing and designing full time), I need to be able to dedicate more of my time and energy to that. This means cutting back on several things, but the biggest one is time spent online in a non-professional/promotional/research capacity, since I could easily spend all day playing Threads of Mystery on Facebook or watching videos of kittens caught in hamster balls on YouTube.

This includes nail blogging. Trying to come up with 2-3 really cool nail art ideas and the time to execute them every week is a challenge, and when my nails are wet, I can't knit. I love doing it, but I don't want to have to force myself to do it every week, particularly when I have other things that need done.

In the past two years, I've accomplished a lot of things: I bought my first new car. I got a promotion. I moved out of my parent's house, and for the first time, some paid me for my writing and my patterns.

Over the next two years, I want to do bigger and better things. It is my goal to publish a novel (or two or three) and at least one knitting book. To that end, it is time that I turned my focus in that direction.

I will still be around on Mondays and Fridays, but my posts will probably be much shorter than they were over the summer. I won't be doing swatches, because, really, I don't like looking at post after post of swatches. I started this blog for nail art and bargins, and that is what I'm going to keep here. I may, in the future, have to go down to one post a week. We'll see. But for

Crap.

I was trying to put this off as long as possible, but I'm going to have to take a short hiatus. I'll be back the first Monday in December. Right now my hands look like crap, since I'm moving and our new place is nowhere near ready--every spare moment is spent over there cleaning, or painting, or something, and when I'm home I'm packing, or making things that we need for the new hours, or, like right now, trying to cram in my daily NaNoWriMo word count. Or some combination of the above.

Anyway, I should be back  in a week or so with some new nail art. See you then!

Administrative

For those keeping track, Monday is the first day of the Geek Nail Challenge. Several people have already signed up, and I will be sending them emails with more information this weekend. I have a family reunion on Saturday, so the emails will likely go out some time late on Sunday. I'll try to get them out sooner, but I don't know what my schedule looks like quite yet.

We'll be using Inlinkz to share photos, just like for the Summer Fun challenge. That means when I send you the email, there will be a link to another site. On that site will be a couple of links/codes that you can paste into the relevant blog posts, which will show other people's manicures, and will enable you to add your own.

Feel free do do as many manis as you want--Since I'm only doing one topic per week, you can take it as far (or make it as simple) as you would like. The point is to have fun geeking out together!

If you don't receive your email by 10 pm eastern time on Sunday, make sure that you check your spam folder since that first email will be sent out as a bulk email. My email screen name is KnotMagickKnitter (from my other blog), so keep an eye out for it!

See you next week!

Geek Nail Challenge

I just wanted to remind everyone about the Geek Nail Challenge:

Week 1: Comics and Animation
My Little Pony? Naruto? Batman? What tickles your geeky bone?

Week 2: Television and Movies
From the Lord of the Rings to Big Bang Theory, celebrate the nerdy side of Hollywood.

Week 3: Games and Gaming
It doesn't matter if you prefer Alice or D&D, or if Trivial Pursuit is more your speed. It's all about having fun!

Week 4: Ultimate Geek
We all have things we love--books, movies, games--but what is it that makes you a geek? Are you a math nerd? A science geek? Or are you just a fan of other geeks? (P.S. Nail polish is chemistry. Chemistry is science. It totally counts for geekdom!)

Since each week has a theme, you can post one manicure on Monday (or Friday, or whenever is convenient) or, if you're like me and having trouble choosing just one thing, you can post seven manicures (one every day!) if that floats your boat.

If you would like to sign up, please leave a comment here with a way that I can contact you!

Welcome to G.O.A.S.T.

Bonjour, and welcome to Girl on a Shoestring, a blog about fashion, manicures, and surviving on half a shoestring budget.

A few things about me:

• I’m not a professional. I’m just a retail minion with a manicure addiction who can no longer afford to have them done professionally (Thanks, Sallie Mae). Most of what I do is trial and error, with help from a few online tutorials and other nail blogs.
  
• I’m still pretty new to the world of art manicures, so this blog is as much about me learning and sharing my successes and failures as it is about sharing pretty pictures and fabulous finds.
• On this blog, I’ll be showing some the great cheap stuff that I come across, both online and in brick and mortar stores. I love finding hidden treasures in unexpected places, like Target, Marshalls, and the local thrift shop, but I also spend too much time on websites like Etsy, Amazon, and Blogger. Every Friday I’ll be sharing my Find of the Week.
• I don't use fake nails.
  
• When I’m not painting my nails or window shopping, I’m reading, writing, knitting, spinning, sewing, and generally making stuff. If you want to know more about that, then you can find my personal blog here.

Thanks for stopping by, and I hope that you come back soon!