I agree with Hyacinth. I don't think I could have thought of anything to say or do either, except maybe change the topic. I think it would be nice to reach out to Sally and ask if she'd like to go out and have lunch or a cup of coffee and just talk. Maybe she just wants someone to listen.

Would that it could stop there. Nope, instead I also eat which is awful because I complain about not being able to lose weight. 🙂

Wouldn't that be nice? I slept all night one night a few weeks ago. It felt amazing.

What if my DH had agreed to the big family I've always wanted? What would life be like with 6 kids instead of 3? What if I had married my high school sweetheart who was in and out of jail in high school? I thought he walked on water. Oh my. What if I had not been able to have children at all, when being a mother was the biggest desire in my life since age 17? What if I had been able to finish college during 1st marriage rather than having to work so much to support us while ex-DH got his degrees? What if I had never met and married DH who is the absolute love of my life? He's not a Christian. He's not religious at all. However, I firmly believe God sent him into my life for so many reasons. Just morning musings. I love to journal and sometimes I just like to ponder over a 'What If' question to get my creative juices flowing. I am such a blessed woman. Yes, I have things I wanted that didn't come to pass, but I've also had things happen I never dreamed about it. Counting my blessings this morning. Everyone have a super great day.

Wow Dawn! I remember when you went back to work. That was 6 years ago? How on earth does time pass by so quickly?

No, not really. I went off two meds but had insomnia before that anyway. I don't drink alcohol either. I'd try if it would make me sleepy! Well, I do take a shot of brandy when I have hiccups. It's a miracle cure. 🙂

My insomnia has stepped up from bad to worse. I fall asleep around 11:00 pm and sleep an hour or so and then am up until around 7:00 am. I go back to bed then and sleep another 3 or so hours. So I'm getting less than 5 hours sleep a day. I've tried all the tips and tricks given to me by my doctors and therapists as well as things I've read online. Sleeping pills, even strong ones, simply do not help. Ugh. On the bright side, I get a lot of reading done. Oh, and yes, I've tried reading a boring book. If I manage to fall back asleep, it's never longer than 15 - 20 minutes. TMI but my LMP was 12/1/2021. My body is finally deciding menopause sounds like a good idea. I'm not getting hot flashes or night sweats. I just can't sleep! Oh and I'm 54 yrs. old. My sister is 6 years older than me and has been going through symptoms for years. She gets terrible hot flashes and night sweats. I don't complain to her. She'd probably sit on top of me and torture me like she did when we were kids. 😄 My days vary with regards to weariness. I have some days I seem to be dozing on and off all day, while other days I'm more awake. No rhyme or reason.

Storage units are supposed to be a temporary measure. I'd say rent one to get stuff out of your way while you're waiting for the storage to be built. My mom refused to part with a lot of stuff when she moved in with her mom and paid at least $100/month for it. After a year, she finally acknowledged she was wasting money to save items she will never use. We took as much as we could that fit nicely into her home and she donated the rest. She spent over $1000 for nothing. She regretted that.

I would hire someone to finish it. It would obviously be beneficial to your household to have that extra space sooner rather than later. If it was just a fun project, I'd say give it a bit more time because he might be enjoying it and really wants to finish it on his own. However, 2 years is a bit extreme. That is beyond patient.

Is there a way to bump or repost something I posted a few days ago? So much has been posted since then that I think my post is too far down to be noticed. I realize it's not like a discussion board but I don't want my post lost and not viewed. Do I need to actually do a new post with the same pictures to get it in the newer posts on top?

I'd suggest applying for the job and if offered, then see if you still feel the same cons. Maybe actually having the job will clarify your thinking. And if they don't make a decision quickly, could you go ahead and have your kids evaluated and if you don't get the job, choose not to place them in school next year?

Because it can take weeks to get there. I've had at least 2 packages over the past couple of months take over 6 weeks to get to me from inside the U.S. I suppose I could have opened a claim with PayPal but I felt bad if I did that knowing media mail can take a long time. One seller reimbursed me without me even asking and when the item did show up, ironically during my recent issue, she wouldn't accept payment for it at this late date. It was $12 and said she just wanted to pay forward kindness she received. I felt bad because I could never just give $70 away without having a good reason. Thinking the buyer could be a schemer doesn't make me want to help them out. It's like giving money to a person beside an intersection, only to find out he drives a nicer car than me! There went that $30! And yes, my manager witnessed him getting into a car and driving away. So no more giving money to people standing on the street. Isn't that sad?

That isn't how PayPal feels! I just put up a thread about a problem where PayPal refunded a buyer of mine because she didn't get her media mail package in what she considered to be an appropriate time. She received the box the day after PayPal took the money out of my account. So I did an appeal and won that time and got my money back. How do you keep from being responsible if a package is lost??

You ladies are right. They do take secular materials. I used to buy from there frequently! 🙂

I do not want to use media mail ever again. It's just too much of a hassle. So what do I do instead? Can someone please explain USPS options to me? Most of the books I have for sale will fit into a padded envelope which is how I get the majority of the books I buy. So if I don't send them media mail, how are they shipped? I once had someone tell me First Class was for letters and Priority Mail was for packages. Well, I can ship UPS for the same price, if not cheaper, than Priority Mail. So USPS provides tracking information right? What other services should I consider adding on? Again, this may price me right out of the USPS. What do I do about seller protection, so I don't have another snafu like I just went through? The books I'm selling range in price from $12 to $35, so not a lot of money. Obviously I'd like to make some money here and most definitely do not want to lose money. I.E. I don't want to sell a book for $12 only to pay $12+ to ship it. All the ins and out of prepping, getting supplies, driving to the post office, standing it its ridiculous long line is worth way more than saving a few bucks. I'm not out to take advantage of anyone. I'm not asking people to pay for all the stuff I have to pay for. I consider costs like envelopes and boxes to be my responsibility. But I did price my items with the understanding that I might be spending $10 to mail the items. For the couple of $12 books I have, I'm taking a risk. They are such good books that I hated to donate them to the thrift store where all books are .50 cents each. And I don't donate to Good Will anymore. I do have a homeschool bookstore I can donate to, but I don't know if they accept non-Christian materials. I'd have to check. Although, come to think of it, I think everything I have is Christian. Another example of possibly losing money is an American Literature program I bought. I got the textbook and workbook for less than $10 combined at Christianbook, but they are two fat paperback books, one spiral bound. It would cost more to buy a box and ship than it cost me to buy them originally. I'm definitely donating this to the homeschool store.

PayPal found in my favor for the appeal and refunded the $70. It's my understanding from reading the FAQs that I'm supposed to be refunded the dispute fee as well but the email didn't say anything about that. I may have to call.

According to the paypal site, if a seller appeals and wins, the money and dispute fee are returned to him/her. So I might be able to get my money back.

UPDATE: The package was delivered to that lady today and I immediately contacted PayPal about it. I filled out the appeal form but said I wanted to know what their fees are before I do so. They already have $15 of my money for a dispute I didn't even open. But the good news? The buyer contacted me that she received the box and she wanted to know how to get the payment back to me because she wanted to be honest. Now who knows, she might even be on this board and read this thread. Not sure. But I was so very grateful that her email was so polite. I responded with what I had done today and that I figured PayPal would contact her. But it sounds like if they won't let me do an appeal, I can just invoice her and she can pay me. Or I might ask if she uses Venmo or Zelle as I do both of those as well. Then we can avoid PayPal fees again. So I'm feeling hopeful. I'm no longer making what I had expected since I lost the original PayPal fee and the $15 dispute fee. My profit is down to 52.00 for two complete Saxon Math sets. That disappoints me but it's better than not getting anything at all. I hate selling cheap things. I really don't understand people can sell books for $2.50 each as media mail isn't as cheap as it was when I was buying/selling curriculum when my kids were little. I have a listing on ebay that has two bids so far. I'm going to lose money on the deal, but again I'll get something. I don't have a lot to sell and some of it I'm going to donate to my local homeschool store. I'm also going to go to them before I buy anything else online.

The problem is that the buy/sell/exchange homeschool groups I'm participate in on facebook make it part of their policy to insist that people use paypal good/services as no one payment method protects the buyer. They repost that warning every month I think. And with ebay, it seems paypal is also the default for people selling curriculum. I can't seem to get around it.

I appealed the case so now all I can do is wait. I gave them a picture of my receipt with the tracking number and also put the tracking number in my appeal. I wasn't going to bother because I have no confidence any of them will do the right thing. DH said it's worth the risk of being charged another $15 if I lose this appeal. We'll see what happens. I'm not talking to her anymore. This past week I sent her a few emails and she never responded.

Almost, by losing the books, I lost the money I put into them originally when I bought them. I paid close to what I charged, but I bought mine all in pieces and resold the books as sets. I figured they'd sell better. I'm letting it go. I just can't be bothered with it. The box was delivered at 12:53 pm today. I looked at paypal, following their instructions to appeal the case, but there is no 'appeal' button to click. So I'm going to chalk this up as a stupid move on my part and move on. I'm not using USPS anymore though. In order to sell on ebay, I can list one item per month and it has to be under $10. I can't even have a reserve price above $10.00. But it added suggested shipping of $5.71. I figure it will probably cost at least $10 to mail it UPS. UPS does give me the rates for USPS Priority and UPS is cheaper every time. So I'll probably make about $5 on that set, but hey, that's $5 I can put towards my next purchase. I'll consider it a coupon. 🙂

Okay, the link finally came through. I had a negative balance that I had to pay off. Thanks for your comments. We'll see if anything happens when she receives the box.

Great. Then all I have left is to hope she'll pay me when she gets the box. If she doesn't, I'll just have to make sure I never sell to her again. I wish I could warn others but there is no chit-chat on the board and no where to post a question or comment. It's simply buy/sell.

Okay, so what do people do if they know for a fact that the item that was lost actually did show up? DH says I need to open a dispute to have the refund reversed because the tracking will say delivered. The problem is this box was never lost. It's media mail which takes more than 5 business days. She opened the dispute 5 business days after I mailed it.

but paypal did the investigating based on the tracking number. What I told the woman shouldn't have come into play. If it did, they should have stated that in the email. My second problem is the email also said the amount was removed from my paypal account. However, I do not see a transaction in my activity page of that withdrawal and it's not showing in my bank account as being sent back to paypal, plus the additional $15 isn't showing anywhere. The instructions did not tell me to do anything specific. I guess I'll call monday and ask them what am I supposed to do now. Somehow the woman got her $70 but I don't know where they got it from to give it to her! My DH said that I should watch the tracking and as soon as it says it's been delivered, to open a new dispute in paypal and give them that information that the package was showing delivered and I want the refund reversed.