I had an awesome money-making idea! At least I hope it is. It’s hard for me to be positive because every time I try to make extra money I never succeed, but I’m kind of excited about it just the same. To find plain mannequin heads that aren’t made of Styrofoam to use to practice painting on has proven to be rather impossible. The best I could find were forms, but they’re not much cheaper than full plain white mannequins. I could get a plain white one from the people I got Ashley from for $99. Then it hit me that for just $20 more we could save ourselves a lot of hassles, mess and additional money by getting a fully painted budget mannequin. Ashley was a high-ender. All a budget mannequin is one without painted nails and pierced ears. The high-enders run from $165 - $199, and the budgets run from $99 - $119. So maybe we should get a budget mannequin and skip the paint cost/mess/hassle and list them on eBay at twice the cost. Your average cheap mannequin these days goes for $250 - $275. A budget mannequin would be $180 with shipping. If we list it at $250 and say the price includes shipping, I don’t see why it wouldn’t sell. Especially if I take really good pictures of it both nude and in some outfits. We’d make a $70 profit each week if we could list one every Sunday to Sunday. I know that wouldn’t be much, but it’d be a start. Some profit is better than none. It’d be a little less of a profit if we got a wig with each one, in which case we could raise the price to $275. I’d like to start with Monique but I don’t know when because I really want to finish getting the Tonners and Barbies on my list. She’s listed as an ethnic but is as white as these two. She seems plenty nice enough to be stuck with if something up there is really against us and we can’t get rid of her. I’m really excited about this. The only hassle would be getting lots of brown paper to ship them in the boxes they were shipped to me in, and getting new boxes if they’re too beat up by the time they reach me, and then getting them to FedEx. If this works out we could maybe buy them in sets. We could get a 3-piece set for $350 (this includes a male) and sell each for $275 with shipping. We could get a 6-piece set for $800. That’d be an $850 profit if I did the math correctly! Since I wouldn’t have the 50 feedbacks required to list her as a buy-it-now, I’d put her up with a starting bid of $219 and set the shipping cost at $49. This would also be a great way to see their mannequins in person in case there are any I want to keep. You know how sometimes things look good online that aren’t as nice in person. Fortunately, Ashley looks better in person and so did Denise once I did her makeover. She still needs lower lashes, though.

Tom has been racking his own mind thinking of business ideas. I always did say it would be so, so ideal if we could have our own business! No one could fire or lay him off that way. It would be even more ideal if we could own just one house somewhere totally outright, but I don’t know that God would want us to have that much security and extra money. He hasn’t yet anyway.

We rode up to Circle K and Tom was surprised that I didn’t have to stop since it’s up a steep hill. I was surprised too, though I sure did come close. It was quite a workout, but it just goes to show once again how keeping in shape by working out at home has paid off. I haven’t lost any fat, of course, but I can feel the muscles firming up underneath the fat. You know your metabolism’s barely moving when you eat 1200 calories several days in a row, ride a bike in such hilly terrain, and still weigh the same!

I don’t miss open spaces, but I miss flat ones, that’s for sure. I hate riding these hills. Going downhill can get a little scary as you can pick up so easily.