Readmitted to Hospital with HSP

After ten days in the hospital,  we were finally discharged.  All the signs and symptoms of the ruptured appendix are gone except for the three little incisions on her belly.  But family time at home would only last for two days.

Boo woke up this morning with severe abdominal pain and her right eyelid extremely swollen.  Her abdominal pain seemed worse than ever before.  Unbelievably the pediatrician's office was open for business.  After a quick phone call,  we hurried Boo to the office.

The majority of clinicians are now in agreement that Boo now suffers from HSP (Henoch-Schonlein Purpura.) WebMD has a spot-on definition for what Boo has but I can't link to it for you as I am attempting to post this from my cell phone.  This is a reaction in her body that leads to skin rash,  joint pain and severe abdominal cramping.  In very rare cases,  it can include unilateral eyelid swelling.  Medicine can't say exactly what triggers the onset but they agree there is no cure.  It plays out over 4-6 weeks and will eventually resolve on it's own.

Until then,  it's all about pain management.  For now,  she's readmitted to the exact same room we had for ten days on the pediatric unit and rotating Morphine and Toradol.  She received Morphine in the ER (Pediatrician wanted to direct admit to hospital,  I negotiated stopping through ER for quicker pain relief. )

But in an attempt to stay off the harder drugs,  we're trying Toradol every 6 hours first.  The Morphine worked fast (through IV)  but only worked for about 75 minutes before she was shaking in pain.  The Toradol (intravenous) worked just as fast and seems to be lasting much longer.  She's started to whimper now (in her sleep)  and we're at the five hour mark. Time for her next dose of Toradol. I'm also told that the Toradol has an anti-inflammatory effect which will help too.

We're told we should only be here for 24 hours as long as she stays compliant with eating,  drinking and walking. She becomes non-compliant with extreme pain (and I don't blame her.)

Her feet still hurt when she walks to the bathroom but we'll see what tomorrow brings. It's almost 11pm and she dozing off again.

OJD

From Ruptured Appendix to Marshmallow Feet

Boo got admitted to the pediatric unit around midnight Sunday (last Sunday)  under the misdiagnosis of urinary tract infection (UTI.)

After two days of "aggressive"  antibiotic therapy,  everything remained the same: high white blood cell count (indicating infection),  severe abdominal pain and fever.

It was at THAT point (day three) that a physician decided it MIGHT not be a UTI.  A quick CT Scan revealed her burst appendix and huge abscess behind her uterus.

Two hours later she was prepped for emergency surgery.  It was a 45 minute procedure and Wifey and I sat together in a waiting room assuring each other that everything would be okay.

She emerged groggy from surgery and we were told how well the surgery went... "a success."  Fast forward a few days...

For almost a week Boo hadn't eaten without throwing up.  It didn't take long before she didn't want to eat or drink at all.   It was the second night after surgery that she requested a hamburger! As delighted as we were,  she was still restricted to "clear liquids."  It would be the next day that she would get to eat a few bites of sausage and bacon.  The next day came... and she was granted her hamburger.

Walking had been difficult and just getting her out of bed was a chore.  But as the days progressed,  so did she.  She began eating and drinking like normal and walking great distances. With her pain subsiding,  her compliance to eat,  drink and walk increased.

Day six came and we had the best day since we got admitted.  Wifey and I rotated staying the night at the hospital and I spent 4 vacation days to make sure she had someone by her side at all times.

Then it happened.  At 3pm on that sixth day,  Boo said her feet itched and she took off her hospital socks.  There they sat,  at the end if the bed,  glowing beet red,  swollen like marshmallows with a rash everywhere.

I quickly helped her into the shower hoping she could wash off some invisible cooties that had swollen her feet so terribly.  They quickly became painful and the skin tight as a drum.

Her nurse was summoned and she put calamine lotion all over them.  This made them burn worse! It quickly,  and painfully,  was wiped off.  The physicians think she has now had a severe reaction to her antibiotics... a DELAYED reaction because she had been on them for several days already.

So here she sits,  unwilling to eat,  drink or walk because her feet hurt so bad. It's like we're back to square one.  But at least I know her appendix is removed and blood tests show her infection is gone.  Now we just have to ride out her rash... which has now spread to several parts of her body.

Wifey is here to relieve me to go home.  Boo is sleeping peacefully.  I'll post pics when I get home.

OJD

Headed to the Emergency Room

Boo (8 year old) is headed for surgery for a ruptured appendix.  Good grief,  right?  Will post a follow up.

The Beat Goes On...

As an Amazon Associate, Orange Jeep Dad earns from qualifying purchases. This post may contain affiliate links.

My apologies for my reprieve from the blog. So many things pulling in so many directions, it was the blog that took a back seat. Since all comment posts go straight to my cell phone, I noticed yesterday that two of my three readers were asking where I had gone. ;-)

This is one of our mystery trees in the front yard.

My homesteading plans have been paused as I contemplate what I should do as a renter. I hestitate to plant gardens and build rain catchment systems because I had high hopes we would find our own property by the end of our first lease. That lease is already coming up fast (November) and it looks like we'll be renewing for another year.

I just don't see much point in establishing something that we might be walking away from in the next 12 months. But the itch to be self sufficient is starting to override my caution. I've begun to care for the trees in the front yard which I was told "should be" fruit producers but have never born  fruit in the past because prior renters/owners weren't interested in  taking care of them. Finally, one day, I couldn't stand it anymore. Two trees were practically laying on the ground. I placed them upright and packed the soil around them, securing one tree with rope to the nearby fence.

Mystery tree

I plan to place a rain barrel at the end of the row of trees and run a drip line along them all...allowing for water to slowly seep from small holes situated adjacent to each tree. Perhaps I'll post some pictures of the struggling trees to see if anyone an tell me what they are or what they might produce if nurtured properly.

The chickens finally started to give eggs after Easter. We enjoy the fresh eggs so much that we have purchased five more chicks and have started to raise them. That will be a total of nine layers and one rooster. One, oddly enough, keeps laying giant eggs that has two yokes. I wish we had about twenty layers so I could eat eggs every day.

We have decided, as a family, we'd really like a pig but until we get our own place, it won't be allowed. We're on the fence about two goats for milk when we get our own place. Knowing they would have to be milked twice a day isn't something we're sure we could do just yet. But having the milk would sure come in handy since the girls are drinking a minimum of one gallon per day.

The unabashed selfie at work.

Speaking of the girls, they are all doing fine. Summer break is upon us and they are glad to be out of school. Working is going great and I feel like I finally have a handle on my work duties. My department is performing at award winning levels (literally) and everyone seems pleased with their boss (me).

Macky and I have begun to exercise regularly. I'm down almost 20 pounds and Mack about six. Being in good health, at least for me, is hard to focus on when you have large traumatic events occuring (house fire, whooping cough, dog attack, any other unmentionables.) But I am happy to say that our lives have smoothed out and we can now get back to focusing on our QUALITY of life rather just surviving the next week.

~OJD

Everyday Essentials

Posts like this always remind me to keep the essentials on hand. A few things worth having around: a set of storage bins, a daily planner, and a durable tote bag.

Sister's First Prom Dance

Time is passing, there's nothing I can do to stop it. The time has come for our oldest daughter to attend her first school prom dance. So naturally, as a good father, I prepared. I left work a little early and put a sign on my office door to let everyone know where I'd be.

As soon as I got home, I changed into proper attire and started to check the important things:

Sis came down the stairs looking as beautiful as ever. My how she has grown.

When the young man came a courtin', I let them take some pictures together...

She was brought home on time and had a wonderful time at the dance.  He didn't seem to mind at all when I took his fingerprints and placed a tracking device on his car.  It didn't really matter though, Sister's phone had a tracking device already installed ;-)

~OJD 

Home Based Business Model: ShopOfWatches.com

As an Amazon Associate, Orange Jeep Dad earns from qualifying purchases. This post may contain affiliate links.

I've been posting about selling products on Amazon and eBay lately in an effort to share what I've learned over the years with my loyal readers (all eight of you!) LoL.

In this post, I'm taking a tiny break from the Amazon & eBay venue to talk about one of my other "irons in the fire" for producing income from home.  It still pertains to selling on the internet but this method avoids paying HUGE fees (up to 25% for Amazon) on every product sold.

I'm talking about setting up your own website and selling products DIRECTLY to the consumer. Yes, it is easier to sell to customers through a well-known platform like Amazon or eBay. They have already established a presence on the internet and people browse them daily. But they also charge you dearly to sell items to their customer base. People who buy from you through Amazon are not truly YOUR customer (they're Amazon's) and they'll gladly remind you of that every sale.

Why open your own website or web-store?

1. You keep all the profits. As mentioned before, Amazon charged as much as 25% of your sale price (fees are not based on your profit, they're based on your total price!) and always come out of your account BEFORE you get access to any money. Many times, I would make $20 on a sale but Amazon would make $50+.
2. You are only competing with yourself on your own website. On Amazon, any jack wagon can come along and offer the same item for one penny less than you do and steal 99% of your business. Most people know so little about buying online that the penny-cheaper guy could have the WORST feedback history on the page, but people will still buy from him because they save a penny.
3. You control EVERYTHING: the look of the website, the checkout methods, how you advertise and hours of operation. Amazon even has rules about the images you post to sell an item. It has to be 500 x 500 pixels and the background has to be pure white (and they'll check.) It took me six tries to get "permission" to sell watches on Amazon because my pictures (which were straight from the manufacturer's website) didn't meet Amazon's standards. Wanna take PayPal payments only? You can do that on YOUR website. Wanna answer emails during normal hours and not on weekends? You can set those rules on your own website. Amazon grades you on how fast you respond to ANY customer inquiry, even if it left at 2am on a Sunday.

 Setting up your own website is fairly complicated to a newcomer but not unmanageable. I'm experimenting with BigCommerce and Shopify at the moment. These two companies are in direct competition with each for out-of-the-box website business startups. With little experience, I'd guess that within in hour or two, you could have a website completely up and running and ready for business (including accepting payment from PayPal or a credit card accepting company.)

To bring my thoughts around full circle, this post is about making income from home and using an internet webstore to do it. Find an item or items that you want to sell and put them out on the internet for everyone to see. There are numerous things to consider when doing this:

1. Is the item you are selling popular?
2. How many other sellers are out there selling the same product?
3. Is the item you are selling found in every corner store or is it unique?
4. Do you have a passion for the item you are selling? Is it meaningless to you?

One item I have chosen is wrist watches. The way I see it, everyone needs a watch. Yes, I do know some people (Wifey) who don't wear one and are constantly asking "What time is it?" And YES, that is VERY annoying. But for the most part, just about everyone wears a watch. This is an item that has been around for 100+ years and comes in many styles.

Eventually, I plan to offer many different styles from multiple manufacturers. But to be profitable, you have to be able to buy them at a good price. This is where wholesale prices and/or dropshipping comes into play. Through Doba, mentioned in my post here, I can offer hundreds of watches in many styles and (theoretically) buy them at wholesale prices. I say "theoretically" because I have noticed a trend whereby sellers claiming wholesale prices on Doba are merely resellers themselves trying to act like wholesalers. For example, I see a seller offering a certain watch to me at a wholesale price of $400. A quick price check against Amazon or eBay tells me that other people are selling that exact same watch for $350. How is that possible if the Doba seller is a "wholesaler?" Simple...he isn't. He's portraying to be a wholesaler to members of Doba in hopes that nobody will know they can buy cheaper on Amazon.

Anyway, one of my favorite brands of watches is the Invicta brand. I have always found them to be very stylish and they have few lines that offer huge watches. As a big guy, I like a big watch. So I chose a domain name: ShopOfWatches.com and purchased it for $7 at Dotster. You can buy domain names at any of 100 places. I've used Dotster for years.

I signed up for a free trial at Shopify (7 day free trial) and pointed my domain name at the Shopify store that I created to sell my watches. Now when people type in ShopOfWatches.com they will be taken directly to my Shopify webstore. Using the free trial, I set up the store the way I wanted it to look including banners and a theme. I went with a free templet theme and just typed in my information where I was prompted.

I loaded up watches for sale and chose to accept payment through PayPal because I already had a PayPal account established. Within a few days, the store was ready for customers. That leads to the next step: how to get customers to your store.

Internet marketing is a vast arena and there are almost a limitless amount of ways to drum up traffic for your store. Some gold standards are: paid advertisements either on the internet or in print, cross-linking in various places on the internet, email campaigns and others. I have yet to do any of that. For now, I've just got it up and running and ready to accept orders.

Total cost so far...$7.  Once my trial is over with Shopify (and BigCommerce is just about the same), I'll have to pick a monthly package (which comes with a monthly payment plan) depending on what features I wish to have available. I'll probably settle for something around $25/mo with hopes that I sell more than that. As with any business venture, there's always a gamble. I'm gambling $25 a month that I'll be able to sell more than $25 and make a little profit.

I'll post more about how this home based business is coming along in the near future.I'm just getting started and wanted to share it with you readers. Remember, if we can get enough multiple income streams coming into our household that we can pay a majority of our bills, we are that much closer to complete independence. Add in growing as much food as you can in your garden, caring for some livestock, using alternative energy sources and capturing rainwater...you just might become 100% self sufficient and live by your own rules, your own schedule!

Stay tuned for more...

~OJD

PS Don't forget to comment about what interests you and what doesn't. I can expand on things that matter most to you.
PPS I finally turned on captcha blocking. The spamming was reaching rediculous proportions. After it dies back down in a week/month, I'll turn the captcha back off. I've never had it on before but things were just out of control from these spamming jack wagons.

Tools for Smart Budgeting

Posts like this always remind me to keep the essentials on hand. A few things worth having around: a cash envelope budgeting system, a home expense tracker, and a paper shredder for financial documents.

A Good Source to Buy Stuff for Selling on Amazon / eBay

As an Amazon Associate, Orange Jeep Dad earns from qualifying purchases. This post may contain affiliate links.

A Good Source to Buy Stuff for Selling on Amazon / eBay

Just a quick note to you loyal readers who are interested in my Working From Home series. Many of you are looking for a good place to buy products from to resell on either Amazon or eBay.

Here's my latest tip:

Visit iCoffeeNew.com (no affiliate link for me, I'm just sharing what I know) and check out their products. I was concerned about how legit they were at first so I tested the waters with five purchases. They delivered on all of them and are now starting to get rave reviews on referral sites like PriceGrabber from buyers.

An example of what I bought and resold:

Keurig K75 Single-Cup Home-Brewing System with Water Filter Kit, Platinum/Black

Buy it on iCoffeeNew for $105 with free shipping

Current going rate on the Amazon "buy box" which is what they call the main item page on Amazon (as opposed to clicking the link on the right side of the page to see who else might be selling it cheaper) is $175.  That's a $70 profit margin which is a nice range to be in. Don't forget Amazon will take a good chunk.

Listing on Amazon is free (eBay is not) so test the waters. Post the item for sale and price your coffee maker one penny below the lowest seller (the person offering the lowest price of a NEW item) by researching the prices on the right side of the Amazon screen:

This will show you all the sellers and lists them from the cheapest price first. Price your item one penny below the cheapest seller.

The lowest seller here is JAPreval. His price is $144 + shipping. When you list your item, price is at 143.99 ( as long as your shipping fee is the same). Whatever the case on shipping, just add the item price and the shipping together. If your item is one penny cheaper than JAPreval, then your advertisement will out rank his and you'll be at the top of the list. This is great advertisement for your store/item. This is exactly how I sell my stuff.

Post a couple for sale and wait. Sales are always better Friday, Saturday and Sunday when most people are home or just got paid. When you get a sale, collect the buyer's information from Amazon and go to iCoffeeNew.com and buy the coffee maker. Use your information for the BILLING information as you will be paying for it with your money. But use the BUYERS address as the SHIPPING address and have iCoffeeNew ship it straight to the BUYER from Amazon. (Note: on Amazon, they won't releases the sale to you until the buyer has paid the bill. The opposite is true on eBay. The buyer may make the purchase but YOU have to verified the buyer has paid the bill before you ship the item.)

Do NOT click the "shipping confirmation" button on the Amazon sale at this point. Amazon gives you a small grace period (usually 2-3 days) to ship out the item. After that grace period, your item sold will appear "late" on shipping. Amazon grades sellers based on several aspects and shipping your items out on time is one factor.  If you click the "shipping confirmation" button on the day you buy the item, it may be 3-5 day before you get a shipping tracking number from iCoffeeNew. Wait until you get a tracking number and then click the shipping confirmation button on Amazon. During that confirmation process, you will be prompted for a tracking number. 

Tracking numbers are also part of the Amazon grading scale. If you ship on time (by clicking the shipping confirmation button) but don't add a tracking number, it will affect your Seller Score with Amazon.

During the checkout process at iCoffeeNew, chose Free Shipping and during the last step, in the "Order Instructions" box type "Gift receipt only please. No prices."

You pay $105, Customer pays $143.99, Amazon keeps $27-ish and you pocket $12. That's not the greatest profit but it is an example of one item to sell. This brings up the idea we mentioned before about profit threshhold. Is $12 worth the effort? I think it is a little thin but there will be times when you won't find much to sell. A thin margin of profit may be all that is available sometimes. Keep an eye on the market too. You may find, as I often do, the seller who is selling at the thinnest margin (lowest profit point) sells out and drops off the list. When this happens, you need to reassess the selling prices because you can usually raise your price and increase your profit.

With a little practice and research, you can figure out which items have the biggest profit margin and use those to your advantage. Household goods have done particularly well for me: vacuum cleaners, coffee makers, juicers, and blenders. When I find a new source for buying from, I buy one or two and have them shipped to my house (marked as gifts). This lets me see what the customer will see when they receive an item marked "gift" from that company. The I spend a few extra bucks and just ship those items out from my location. Buying shipping through your Amazon account saves you a little on the shipping costs versus buying from Stamps.com or the local post office.

Either way, this is an example of one way to find products to sell. I'll be taking a break for a week or so from selling. While selling online certainly isn't akin to digging ditches, it is tough to keep track of 116 items being shipped while working a full time job. I find that it is a nice break to stop selling and let all the financial dust settle. Then I cash out from Amazon, pay off all the cards I've used (Kohl's, Best Buy, etc) and start fresh for the next cycle.

~OJD