christine-murphy dot net

Okay, it’s a little too late for Christmas now (or VERY early, if you want to look at it another way!). But if you are Christian and are raising your children in the faith, you’ll want to check out this video…

This video, as well as all of the others in the “Donkey Ollie” series, are brought to you by the fine folks at CarAngel.com, a non-profit company. They are able to produce these videos, and distribute them for free to churches, Sunday schools, and youth groups, thanks to the generosity of those who choose to make a car donation. CarAngel.com has distributed more than 2.4 million videos so far, with more to come.

Sometimes, the tax deduction that you can get from donating an unwanted vehicle can be more than what you’d get if you tried to trade it in for a new car. It’s too late for the tax deduction for this year, but think ahead toward next year’s taxes. And even if you think your unwanted car is a piece of junk that no one would want, think again. Even if the vehicle doesn’t run, they might still want it…it can be taken apart and used for parts. I wish we’d known about this when Mike was looking to get rid of his old Ford Bronco II years ago. He ended up selling it to a junk shop for $75. It would have been better to donate it…we’d have gotten a better value via the tax deduction, they would have sent someone to come and get it, and, best of all, the donation would have gone to a good cause.

Enjoy the video, and please remember to consider donating your unwanted vehicle to CarAngel.com!

I am once again in desperate need of reorganizing my craft space. I wish I could have a whole room for it, as some people do…but we live in a small apartment, so I have to use a portion of the living room for my *studio*.

I’ve organized a few times, but right now it’s all a mess, and needs a thorough re-organization. So, when I was at Michaels last week, I picked up this book. It’s one of the many fine books put out by Memory Makers Magazine.

This is indeed a very thorough guide. It assumes that you have little to know basic knowledge of organizing techniques. So it starts at the very beginning…you go through your entire stash and decide what to keep, what to donate.sell.swap, and what should just be thrown away. Then you go through what you’re keeping to organize it further.

The book also contains valuable information on how to make a floor plan, which is useful whether you have a whole room, or just a portion of one. A floor plan will help you see exactly how much real estate you have with which to work, and you’ll see if everything fits BEFORE you start moving furniture around.

If you have little space and/or money, fear not…there are some doable solutions in this book. These include making use of unused spaces all over your home for storage, as well as using storage items that might be in your home, normally meant for other purposes, for scrapbooking storage. A big tool box from Home Depot is a lot less expensive than a similar item from a scrapbook store, and works just as well. It may not be all pink and pretty, but hey, you’re a scrapper! Use your supplies to decorate it and make it pretty!

I loved the flea market experiment. Memory Makers editors were given a budget of $100 and sent to a flea market to buy stuff needed to set up a basic, functional scrapbooking area. They came in at around $67.00, and the setup looked really nice. This is a great plan for a beginner who is ready to move away from working on the kitchen/dining room table. Now, you may not find this exact stuff at any one flea market, but it’s a great springboard off of which to work.

So, if you are in dire need of organizational skills, buy this book. If you buy it at Michaels or A.C. Moore with a coupon, it’ll be a little cheaper than the Amazon price. Well worth it, in my opinion!

…and funeral arrangements have been made. I’m just glad that the family won’t release any further info as to when and where the actual funeral is to take place. Maybe that will keep the Westboro Baptist Church nutjobs away. That is just so sick, for anyone to want to picket someone’s funeral that way.

It’s not known yet exactly how he died…right now it’s being ruled as an accidental drug overdose, since was was taking sleeping pills and such that were prescribed for problems he was having. I almost threw something at the TV yesterday, when some skeevy tabloid reporter said the police found evidence of illicit drugs on a $20 bill found in his apartment. But less skeevier sources say that NOTHING was found on said $20 bill.

Maybe we will never know if this very talented actor was abusing drugs or not. The only time I ever heard of him ever entering a drug rehabilitation center was when he was doing research for the 2006 Australian film, ‘Candy’, in which he played a drug addict. Since I never saw him on the covers of any supermarket tabloids or anything, I thought he was living a clean life.

And maybe he was. But as I said, perhaps we’ll never know for sure what happened.

Rest in peace, Heath. You will be sorely missed!

…if you can help it!

But if you can shop for something that’s already on sale, and then use a coupon, that’s even better!

For instance, Overstock.com is a great shopping site that has a large variety of items at greatly reduced prices. Shopping there is almost always less expensive than at other sites, if they happen to have exactly what you’re looking for in stock. But now, you can save even more by using these Overstock coupons. Some coupons offer free shipping, other offer X amount of dollars or X% off certain orders. They add new ones almost every day, so keep checking back. If there’s not one yu can use now, there probably will be soon.

Why pay full price, if you don’t have to?

that I could get life insurance quotes for computers. You know…say your computer dies, the insurance pays out for a new one.

My computer died on Saturday night…at least the power supply did. I hope that’s all it is, because that can be easily fixed. We just need to get a power supply from somewhere, and Mike needs the time to install it.

So right now, I am using Mike’s ancient laptop, with dial-up internet. This thing is so old that I can’t install the DSL on it. This thing has the software for free Juno net access installed, but I upgraded it to a paid version. The free version only allows you to use it for just 10 hours per month. Sorry,but that is NOT enough. I do a lot of assorted work online, and I’d be losing more money than the monthly Juno fee if I was unable to do it.

Paid Juno give unlimited access, and the version I have is faster than the free one. No annoying banner ads hovering over the window, either.

Still, I miss my DSL. Hopefully, my real computer will be up and running soon!