Happy Holidays, friends!

last modified: Saturday, December 26, 2009 (9:24:58 PM CST)

Well i cant believe another year has come and gone!
Seems like i was just celebrating last years new years! >_<
Its amazing, days are coming and going faster in my life now. Life's changing so fast i cant keep up.

My 95 yr old grandmother fell last monday and she had to go to the hospital and get six stitches. >_< poor baby. Mentally she's good but physically she's very frail. A far cry from when i was a child and she was helping raise me. It hurts alot to see that. My aunt said she doesnt think my grandma has many more years left in her. I cant even imagine living my life without my grandma being there to call when i just want to talk about something (in a way im closer to my grandma than any one else in my family... we can talk about things that i cant talk to anyone else about).

Heh, another major event in our lives this year was that my mother's best friends daughter (who is really like a cousin to me.. she's 5 yrs younger than i) she's getting married. HEH, i remember holding this girl as a little baby when i was a child! omgosh where has the time gone???

and the last major thing was, I PAID OFF MY CAR!!!! XD YAY!!!!!!! *fireworks explode, patriotic music plays in bkground* :D
Thank God!!!
wow it feels so good to finally have almost no debt! :D

lastly, my collection.
This year i kinda let it take over me abit with over-spending. >_< im bad with spending money. My problem is, id rather have cool cels than have food in the fridge... yeah i know thats not a good thing. >_<
So my new years resolution is to only collect cels ill never sell and buy LESS cels (im going to try to only let myself buy once every other month… REALLY going to try hard to keep that rule).
One thing on the wishlist for next year is a good cel of "D" from Vampire Hunter D. Thats an awesome awesome movie! Ive got pretty nice ones of the major characters. Just need one of him. :)

Well Happy Holidays my friends! :)
if you get a chance, please check out my site. I redid it abit. I made a new category called "memories of my childhood" where i hope to get just one (really nice) cel from each of the cartoons i used to watch as a child. I have a nice selection now but a few more series elude me (Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego, Ghost Busters, TMNT, She-ra - which i used to have cels from but they were really ones i wasnt impressed with so i didnt mind selling them so much- and lastly the very expensive Transformers >_<).

Well, i wish you all a very happy New Year (where all your cel-dreams come true)! :)
God bless!
~amy

Well i got my sign...

last modified: Saturday, September 19, 2009 (10:44:48 AM CST)

Firstoff i want to thank everyone who responded to my previous blog. i appreciate all your comments and your encouragement!!! *hugs*

Well as you read i was going back and forth between thinking of selling my collection or not selling my collection. Of course i love my pieces (what collector doesnt, ya know?), but i love my family even more and i finally got the sign that i was looking for, for a decision.

Yesterday i was working and i got a phone call from my mother. She informed me that her hours have been cut... in half!!!
Instead of working an 8 hour shift, her employer informed her she will now be working only 4 hours a day (just enough to maintain her health insurance.. thank God!!!).
So now I will...yet again... be the primary breadwinner in my family (of just me and my mom).

Im just grateful that they didnt eliminate her job completely because we never would have made it with just my job and buying her medications on top of paying normal bills (which would be around $600 a month if she had no ins...omgosh we got out like bandits, thank you God thank you God >_<).
Hopefully as time goes on she can find another position within our company (the school district we work at). But even they are suffering from the loss of TEN THOUSAND kids!!! Yup, ten thousand kids have seriously just up and left the district in one year alone!!! And the only way were funded is through the number of kids we have. so if that number goes down dramatically (like it has) then our funding goes down EVEN MORE dramatically... hours cut, jobs lost, funding to programs eliminated, etc (sorry i dont mean to be all doom and gloom but its just depressing >_<).

well anyways, getting back on track...
As i said i was asking for a sign to sell majority of the collection b/c i just felt like my heart wasnt into it anymore and it was eating away at $ we didnt have.

So i got it.
And so it begins...

ill be putting an update on Anime Beta about selling off probably 90% of what i have...
the only sections that arent going to be for sale are my Batman items, Gargoyles items (because they were with me from the beginning), two of my Rilezu's (the one from Saiunkoku and the other from Vampire Knight) and a few various cels and sketches that are special to me.

heh, i went through the entire collection last night and said to myself "ok, is this really special and meaningful to me or is it just cool looking?"... and boy was it TOUGH!!! >_<
but getting down to the nitty gritty and really asesseing things, i feel like im at peace now with my decision.

Ive come full circle, so to speak. Originally when i started this collection (back in 2007...dang has it be almost 2 years so far???) i was primarily going to collect Batman cels (hence the name "Knight Visions") and got distracted by a TON of different things along the way. Now i wish i hadnt have given in to those things but well, whats that saying "if wishes were horses"? oh well.

So ill start with Anime Beta and hopefully ill be able to sell quite a bit there (though my first attempt at a sale went terribly badly ... no takers on anything >_<) then if that doesnt get rid of everything, ill go to ebay *sniff*.

Thank you again for everything my friends *BIG hugs*!!! I appreciate all of your kindness and encouragement. :)

Wish me luck!

Much love,
Amy

ive been thinking....

last modified: Monday, September 14, 2009 (9:31:22 PM CST)

Hi friends!
Hope you all are well and enjoying the end of summer (i know i am ^^... no more over 100 degree temps!).

been doing alot of thinking... about my collection as a whole. About my life, my future, and where my collecting habits will fit in it.
From what my past has shown, im VERY bad with spending. >_<; and here i am again... i got a raise from my employer and i went on a shopping spree. oh boy.

i think about my mom alot now. She's getting up in years... she's almost retirement age but she probably wont be able to until she's in her mid 70's!!! Main reason why is because she is very sick and if she didnt have health insurance ... God knows she probably wouldnt be alive today. She has a wonderful doctor and he takes very good care of her (she's diabetic and if you know anything about diabetes its very very very destructive on your body if not controlled... which thank God her illness is under controll right now).

Then i think about myself. im not old but im not getting any younger either. Couple more years ill be 30... holy cow, remember when we thought 30 was old?!?!?! man >_<

At this point in my life i guess im going thru what every un married (w/ no boyfriend) girl is going through. OMgosh the clocks ticking, OMgosh is this all thats going to be in my life (job-wise, life-wise), OMgosh when the hell am i going to loose this weight >_<;
UGH.

so with all those lovely thoughts im trying to place where collecting fits in.
and i honestly just cant see it.
ive really enjoyed getting some sweet pieces but … i dont know if im just starting to grow up or what.
im just tired of the days of getting this piece and that piece and throwing it in the drawer to wait for the next aquesition to be placed on top of it. i dont really get any joy out of this hobby anymore.... just a drained bank account.

so with that being said im thinking of just throwing in the towel and selling all of my collection (well save some pieces that are dear to my heart). Just letting them go to people who will really appreciate and take care of them.

i dont know, it just drives me crazy.

i like them but… then again like i said, they just get thrown in a drawer (no ive been meaning to buy a itoya portfolio for them but just never got around to it.. shame shame on you Ms Amy!!!! >_<).

mmm. i dont know what to do.

when i really come down to it, the ones that i REALLY love are my batman and Gargoyles pieces. Theyre happy memories of a nice childhood.
Theyre very precious to me.

but everything else... mmm. i dont know. i love them artistically but… beyond that.... nothing else really.

heh, then i think to myself, if id just stuck to what id originally started collecting (batman pieces) i wouldnt have wasted so much money. argh.

oh well, i guess we cant worry about that...

im seriously thinking of just getting rid of my stuff. just priced to sell. i know ill take quite a loss but… heck i really dont care, i just want them to go to people that will care for and appreciate them.

wish me luck, friends! :)

Happy Birthday America!

last modified: Saturday, July 04, 2009 (9:32:15 AM CST)

Happy Independance day, everyone! :D
Hope you all have a great day!

Well to celebrate my birthday (which no its not today, it was in June) and america's birthday i broke my cel fast and bought a kinda wishlist piece for me. Ill be putting it up as soon as i get it.

Reason why i didnt celebrate my birthday when it was actually ON my birthday was
A. I was broke at the time. >_<
and
B. noone gave me a gift except for my 96 yr old grandma (even though she's as broke as a church mouse ... God bless her soul) and my sweet friend, Liana! :)

So i just bought myself my own gift. :D lol pretty pathetic, eh? oh well. :D

and can you guess what i bought myself?
after OVER A YEAR without any batman updates for a gallery devoted to batman, Knight Visions now (well, soon) will have a NEW batman piece! :D YAY!!!

Hopefully next week we'll have it. so stay tuned!
Same Bat time, Same Bat channel! ;D

Sometimes mistakes are blessings in disguise

last modified: Sunday, May 24, 2009 (11:33:07 PM CST)

Hi friends!
Well i think ive finally got some sense knocked into me. :D

About a month ago i finally decided to put collecting into hibernation mode (not permanantly) and let me tell you that was the BEST thing!

When i started collecting id buy anything and everything without even thinking... even though i didnt have the money. Then id feel bad because i spent all this money and we'd have bills to pay and my mom would need her meds (she's a bad diabetic and takes pills and shots to keep her diabetes in control...not to mention she has high colesterol and bp that she takes pills for too >_<).
So id be collecting what i love and all the while feeling bad for it b/c id be spending money we really didnt have (and hideing it from my mom). truthfully it made collecting really not a happy thing for me.

It finally hit me how broke we were when my mom had to put some stuff on layaway at kmart. >_<

bad daughter i am... bad ... bad ... bad. :*-(

So it gave me a change of heart and made me finally decide to get my stuff in order and stop collecting for the time being... need to pay off my car and other debts THEN i can buy all the pretty cels again.

Before i decided this i had already put in to buy a Vampire Knight Rilezu... pretty cool one too of Kaname and Zero. I thought to myself that this would be my final purchase... but you know how it goes, life hits you... then i realized i couldnt afford it.
Thankfully God gave me someone to take over payments of it so there will still be a buyer (so he doesnt loose money) and i (hopefully) wont be blacklisted from the site (though i bet i will be .. sigh...serves me right >_<; ).

Anyways, i was thinking to myself tonight, mistakes can be blessings in disguise.
I have been going to ebay and watching the "for sale" page on AB and ya know what, nothing really tempts me anymore! :D
well, except for one thing... but its helping me focus because i have a really bad drive to get my car and stuff paid off (no pun intended, lol) so i can have no debts and buy these pieces without hideing and without that guilty feeling that i had when i used to buy my pieces before all this.

ya know what im really happy with my decision!!! :D itll take me quite awile but hopefully when ive paid off all the stuff and im living debt free i can buy my cels and just do nothing but enjoy them. :D

Of course you never know about life, though. i never forget that Bible verse about the man that saved up and said to himself "okay now i have wealth for YEARS to come ... im going to live high on the hog now (well something to that affect) and he died the next night. lol
but at least this way i know i wont regret or feel bad about anything.

its good to make mistakes every once in awhile! :D

what do you think?

AAAHHH!!! im going crazy!!!

last modified: Saturday, April 04, 2009 (9:45:28 AM CST)

ok this is driving me crazy! >_< it seems like every awesome wishlist-quality cel has recently come out of the woodwork (within reasonable affordability) and there are so many that i cant choose (and dont have the money for all of them).

alot of cute little ones have popped up and im faced with the dillemma of "okay do i have all the cute lower priced ones or go for the little more than moderate priced amazing ones???" >_<

ugh! and i know some of these will never see the light of day again b/c of the economy... but what am i gonna do?

i have a VK rilezu coming shortly (and thank God for the almost 1/1 yen dollar ratio!), sold some comic artwork and that put alittle money in my pocket so i can buy these awesome sketches of Crono from one of my AB friends. i really want to buy an awesome rilezu from someone else (and i really have to save up for it if i want it) but itll mean passing all this other cool stuff by.

top it off were really going broke here at home.
good thing is, im not married, have no children and live at home (well thats to help take care of my mom, she's really bad diabetic... and need i mention the economy? >_<) so i have extra money to play with... but i really shouldnt b/c i have my car to pay off (not much but just enough to annoy you into making extra payments to get it done).

ugh!!! sucks you cant have it all. lol

so im like now, what do i choose... hold off for the really great higher priced items (even though awesome lower priced stuff is coming up to buy every day) ... or stop all together and pay off my car... but this is like some serious addiction i got here (and joking aside, its really not good, i mean my mom's seriously putting clothes on layaway at kmart so she can buy clothes and here i am buying the cels)... anyone have any advice on how to stop?

somebody help me!!!!!