I lost my mother in August of 2018 unexpectedly. In August that will be 3 years since she passed. I will never know exactly what caused her to stop breathing. I am not sure if I really would like to know what caused her to stop breathing. Nobody should ever have to go through what I went through.

There is a silver lining though. Don’t get me wrong, I loved my mother but I felt she had held me back a bit. I was not working when I came home from college and she did not help me. I was looking for a job even before she had passed away. It took some months but I finally found a job. Its not exactly what I wanted but at least it is a job. If my mother was still alive, I would probably still being at home stuck in a rut and not working. I am in a rut but in a different way, but I am working to get on my feet which is not easy.

I am thankful that I have my aunt and uncle, but I do want to have my own place. More than anything I would like to get around without having to ask people to help me get places. I live in an area that is really hard to get to places. My hope is to move to where I can get around, but the problem is right now is that I do not make enough money to be able to afford to live on my own. My hope is to move to Chicago or some other town that I can get around.

If my mother was still around, I do not know how she would have handled the COVID-19. Its serious but I am not going to let it worry me either as stress can cause issues. If my mother was still around, I probably would have been freaking out. I have been calm throughout this whole thing.

This past October, I had a scare. I had a mammogram and it did not come out normal. I actually had 2 plus an ultrasound. I had a lump that was suspicious. Originally I was supposed to get a needle biopsy but it ended up being referred to a surgeon which said that it would be better to get the lump removed instead. So they were able to remove and biopsy the lump. I was a nervous wreck leading up to it and I did not have much time to plan for it. I was in the office Tuesday and had the surgery Friday. The last time I had any surgery was when I was 3 years old when I had cataract Surgery.

I am thankful though that the biopsy came out normal though. It could have gone either way. I know I am lucky. I know that if I had not gone this route, I would always worry that they would have missed if its cancer. I rather be safe than sorry.

Being off from work was torture. Besides not making money, my uncle drove me nuts.

I keep trying to find ways to make extra money. So far it has not panned out, but the items I am selling or buying, are items that I can use so its not a total loss. I am going to keep trying until something works. I have to take a chance. If I don’t, I won’t ever know. I just want more to my life. I want to be able to live on my own and be able to survive. Biggest issue I will always have is having a hard time getting places due to the fact I am blind in one eye. Yes there are people who are blind in one eye who can drive, but each person is different. Not everyone has cataracts at a young ago in addition to being blind in one eye.

I want to finish college, but that is not going to happen right now as much as I like it to be. My side projects have to be making me money in order for me to finish college. Its killing me to to pay for college on a part time job. I am not making enough and that money could be used for something else. Do I want to finish college? Yes but it does not seem to happen right now until I can make enough money. I can’t qualify for loans and financial aid anymore. I have enough credits that I should have finished already, but there are some classes I still need to finish. No matter if I go to NIU or SIU, it would take a year to finish if I go full time. The other issue of not being able to finish at this time, is living with my aunt and uncles its to hard to study. Its not fair for me to have to study late at night when everyone is asleep especially when I need to be up early the next morning. Once I get my own place then I can go back. When it comes to studying, I need quiet especially for classes that I am having a hard time with. I need to concentrate and I can’t get that here. Its not my aunt, but my uncle that is the issue.

Last year around the time, I had surgery, I was having issues with my elbow and being in pain. This year, I was finally able to get it taken care of it. I have been going for physical therapy for it. Its gotten better but I am still in pain, but its still not 100% and I am not sure if it ever will be.

Ever since I starting running a website, I have always had adsense on them. I started moving my website around. Though you may not notice it but I have moved it around. Its in a new subdomain of the website which is not part of the main site at the moment.

When I migrated I decided to get away from adsense. I have my own products I am trying to sell though which I would like to be dependent on to make money which should be a win win situation for everyone who comes to my site. It will be your choice if you decide to order from me, but you do not have to deal with ads when you come to this site.

Something has to give. There are days that I want to wring my neck. There are days thaty I make mistakes and I hate it. I love my job at times but other times I want to wring people’s necks. I hate when I mistakes but please do not make me feel bad when I do. I already feel bad as it is when I make a mistake.

One thing I need is positivity to my life. I do not need people that are negative. I may dream but I have goals set that I can do something but the negative people does not help for my success.

I know I can do it, but it takes time to get to where I want to be. What the most important thing to me is being happy. Nobody is going to block me from success.

The simple fact is I know what I want to a point. I know that its important to me to finish college and its also important to be on my own. I lost my mother over a year ago and its more important to me even more to be on my own. I don’t want to live to long with my Aunt and Uncle to long. I love them, but I do not want to be in the same situation I was with my mom. I have to be able to be on my own, but the downside is that I am not making enough money to do so.

I ask everyone to see if they can help me find scholarships for college. I am not asking you for your opinion on what I should be doing. I know what I need to do. Some of the tips I have seen about finding scholarships is in fact trying to get help from other people on finding scholarships.

I have always had a job and going to school at the same time and that is not going to change any time soon.

I am at a disadvantage when it comes to scholarships I believe. I am not disabled enough to qualify for the ones that require a disability. I am in what I feel is a grey area. I am right in between what is considered disabled and not being disabled. Not everyone understands this all. I am blind in one eye and have always have been. My good eye does all the work.

The one thing that is important is me is making enough money so I can live on my own. Right now that is not possible. That is why its so important to me to finish college so that I can have a chance at getting a better paying job. I am also trying to sell things on the side that I make without success. Sometimes it takes money to make money but I am also doing something I am enjoying and learning to do.

Right now the criteria I have for selling items is items that I could use if the items don’t sell. Its an important critera to me. It won’t feel like I am loosing money if its something I could honestly use.

Right now I make hair scrunchies. They are not perfect, but I try to fix those inperfections as much as possible. As I improve and increase my techniques and equipment, those flaws may get less noticable or not noticable at all. Still, the product is good. They are cheaper than what it would cost to buy them at a store typically. The reason why I started making them is that it seemed the quality of the scrunchies was not that good. That is based off of the materials they were using. It did not seem like the fabric was very good. Right now, I am using cotton but as I find other materials I like, that would be changing. I would be using what I currently use in addition to the new materials I like.

I know these are low priced items, but I do have another set of item ideas I like to do, but I need a better sewing machine. The one I currently have is a mini one so it does not do the work I really need it to do. Its a good starter to learn to sew but not something good for long term. I basically need to serger and sewing machine. I already have been looking for them and I already figured out what I want.

If I can get this upcoming project to be a reality, I will be using the same type of materials that I use for the scrunchies.

Nothing is a guarantee, but my hope is to make money off of making these type of things. I am sure over time and as I learn better techniques, the quality of the products I make will improve. Having better equipment helps but it only goes so far. I have to keep learning and improving.

If I can make money doing this, this would help me make a living and I would be doing something I love.

One thing I am trying to do is try to sell items online. The one thing that if I am going to make a product, it has to be a product that I can use if it does not sell. Right now I have been trying to sell scrunchies without success but something has to give. Something has to make me money but it has to be something I believe in.

I have looked into droppshipping, but I do not want it to be full blown dropshipping. I want to be able to inspect the item before I ship it out and then repackage the item so that it is better package. I just want to make sure its not broken before I send the item out. I would like to be able to add value to the drop shipped items when possible.

If I could get a successful online business and make enough money, I could branch out to have stores that are not online. At least that is my hope.

I am still looking at some ideas on what I can make to sell items so I can make some money online.

The one goal I have always wanted is to make a decent living. I do not like the idea of living paycheck to paycheck but make more than that. All my life I know what its like to not have much money. I want to live comfortably but live under my means so that I can save up money. My goal would be to make 100k – 200k or more per year.

I don’t need much but be able to spend money on things I need plus be able to pay on bills without having to worry about not having money. When you do not have much money, it can be hard to pay on bills.

There is a catch 22 when it comes to minimum wage increase and the cost of living. There is no catching up. When minimum wave increases, the cost of living increases. If only they kept the cost of living alone.