IMVU

If you've read my previous blogs you may be aware of my current fascination with avatars that look kind of like me. Well, I've found a very nifty new program that lets you create a 3D avatar of yourself and chat with the 3D avatars of other people in 3D rooms (most of which you can rearrange furniture in, etc.). Of course, I had to run out and create an account and my own avatar. (Seen below is my current look.)



The program is IMVU. It's free and gives you some free "credits" you use to make your avatar (and/or room and/or homepage) just the way you want it/them. The way they make money is from sales of additional credits to people who want more than you can get free.

Anyway, if you're interested in trying the program out, simply follow this link and check it out. (Full disclosure: you DO get additional free credits when your friends sign up). Then come visit my IMVU home page by clicking on my avatar image above. (Or just send me a friend request and tell me you came from my blog if you already have an IMVU account.)

One thing to beware, though. If you try to use their "add buddies" feature to invite friends (as opposed to sending to each friend individually), make sure you deselect your entire email address book before sending out the invite to people who may already have IMVU! I didn't do this and ended up spamming tons of people, including many Yahoo groups. Also, you probably want to deselect the "automatic reminder" option if you're going through the "add buddies" button (yeah, I didn't do that either).

Craptastic Day

So, it should have been a fairly average day. I got up, had some breakfast, got Tre dressed and went to run some errands. I had a check at the post office (yay!) which should have given us a bit of breathing room.

So, I go to the bank to deposit it and get back a little bit of money for our "special drinks" (Tre likes the orange blended creme drink at Starbucks), and find that we're overdrafted by almost $200, enough that my check won't even bring us even. This is where my bad day really starts.

So, I talk to Rich and he says that the problem is that he forgot to mentally adjust for the car insurance auto-deduct (he won't use a register, no matter how often I encourage him to or how many overdraft charges he gets). But he gives me some money for Starbucks, so I head on, but now I'm feeling a bit down.

At Starbucks, they've got a new employee that I haven't seen before. He's friendly and outgoing and really helps to cheer things up a bit. I also listen to some of my favorite songs while drinking my coffee on the way home, but I'm still in the dumps. I raid Tre's halloween candy, making it the second day this week I've completely disregarded my Weight Watcher's points, fiddle around a bit, and try to get some work done.

Then it's 4 o'clock and time for me to help out at Mom's farm. Now, my mother is paying me to take care of her farm while she's traveling to Michigan and Ohio to see her mom and Dad's dad (my two remaining grandparents). She's got four cows, about 10 bunnies, one duck, and five dogs (she's taken a couple of dogs with her) that I'm taking care of for her. I get over there determined to make the best of it.

The weather is decent (after being too cold the last few days), the sun is about to set, and I'm out "communing" with the animals. But the cows are running low on hay. There's a round bale just outside their fence, and I figure I'll give it a shot to see if I can push it through the gate. I get it rolled over twice (once to the fence, once through) and it stops. No matter what I do it won't budge. But the fence won't close, so I'm really screwed. I push and I shove but it won't move. I move the cows to the dog yard (leading them with their grain), and then I get my car and bump it into the hay... no luck. So, now I've got to go back over there with the truck when Rich gets home from work to try to push it with that. My wrists are both very sore. I'm covered with hay... it's just been a very craptastic day.