I recently fell down our basement stairs & suffered a brain injury & have been in the hospital for a month. I am at home recovering very slowly. My wonderful son has been here managing my business. I am trying to work on my Ebay daily but tire very easily. Please don't give up on me, this is a slow recovery & I love my Ebay customers. We will do our best to keep things shipping as quickly as possible. I'm not sure how soon I'll be able to put up new listings as that is a very time consuming job & I'm just not able to do that yet.

Thanks so much to all the precious well wishers out there. It has a been a god-send to me.

Oct. 16: I am so much better I can't believe it! I am back to doing Ebay full time & I have 3 auctions' worth of goodies I am starting to list. Thanks so much to all of you dear friends who have continuously sent me encouraging notes & letters. It has definitely helped me to recover.

 Hi, My name is Ann & I'm a proud Midwest Farmer's Daughter! I have been selling on EBAY fulltime for four years this February & it has turned out to be the most fun & time consuming experience of my life! You can't do this well if you don't absolutely love it & I DO ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT!! I've been an Ebay Member for about 9 years, but always as a Buyer until the summer of 2004 when I plunged right in & sold our Antique '32 Chevy. It was a great experience & I was constantly looking for other things I could possibly sell. It took until the following February of 2005 before I got brave enough to try & list some of the items I had around the house that I wasn't using anymore & some to just help unclutter my small home. It was so successful & exciting & soon my husband & I began going to Estate Auctions to find unique items. We were both hooked! We now go to Estate auctions every weekend, usually Saturdays, but sometimes Sundays too. We may be there for 8 to 10 hours & it is just so much fun to be constantly on the lookout for special & unique things that I think my customers will like. I have a few misses but a lot of hits too. And quite often just Relisting the "misses" means they go for much more than I expected. Every day on here is a constant surprise. I have met so many wonderful folks from all over the country & have kept in contact with so many of them, some on a daily basis. I feel as if we are old friends sitting down for a chat over a cup of coffee. If you can't find the time to be personable & caring, then you shouldn't be selling on Ebay. I stand behind everything I sell. Sometimes accidents do happen, no matter how carefully we pack, & I always fully refund, even though it's hard on my pocketbook. My customers always come back & purchase more. I have a very strong & loyal customer base & I love them for it! I will never be a "Big Box Store", so big that I can't take the time to share in their lives & mine with them.

We are a 2 person operation out of our home. My husband, Harry, who is retired, has become an expert at finding the right boxes & he makes some from scratch when we have the need. He spends hours getting boxes & packing materials from local stores, bringing it all home, organizing, & sorting , plus wrapping & packaging most of the items, so I can keep up with the rest of it.  I have pretty much phased out selling for other people because of the great amount of time involved. I usually have enough of my own "finds". I do have some dear friends that I am still willing to sell for. I work 7 days a week at this business, sometimes 12-18 hour days. I have been known to fall asleep at my keyboard while uploading & labeling pictures for listings. We are both just having so much fun we can't believe it. I'm sure we bore people to death because all we know is "Ebay Talk". We never get over the thrill of having someone actually BID on & BUY our items! There is something so appealing about  finding wonderful things at Midwest Estate Sales.

This is a very important source of income for me as I am able to be at home with my husband & our pets while doing it. My ID "chytifo" stands for 3 of our kitties names: Chyanne, Tiana, & Fo. We lost our dear Chyanne on Nov. 20. She was diabetic & had been insulin dependent for over 5 years, so we feel very fortunate to have had her over 13 years.We also have 3 other kitties indoors & 7 outdoors, plus 1 pet chicken. Fall. Our pets are just our whole world. That & Ebay. We live on 5 acres outside of town & also have a fairly large vegetable garden & flower beds. My husband is pretty much handling the garden by himself on a much smaller scale as we are both much too busy at this.

I have 2 grown children & 2 precious grandsons & all are too far away, but we talk often on the phone & through E-mail.

I always do my best to be honest & fair & would never try to sell something that isn't whatever I have said it is in my listings. Sometimes some of the items I sell don't seem to be all that much, but someone out there will spot it & find it is just what they were looking for & then we are both happy. All of my customer friends are respected the same, whether they are spending $2.00 or $500. I know that what they have purchased is something special to them & it is my mission to get it to them safely & have them be happy with it. I just love getting E-Mails from happy folks. My Feedbacks are so important to me & reflect how I feel about my customers too. They have each taken the time to say something very special & I appreciate it.

Operating your own Ebay business is a big responsibility. There are literally thousands of people out there depending on you to be honest & fair & that is my goal every day. I am always here to answer questions & communicate about payments & shipments & the friendships continue long after the sales. I do not charge a Handling Fee for any of my items & I work very hard to keep the shipping charges down without sacrificing safe packing, & I strive to only charge what it costs me to ship the items. It is part of good business & I am willing to put in the long hours & go the extra miles. I always ship within 12 hours unless it's a Sunday or holiday. I haven't missed in nearly three years. We have a wonderful, helpful crew at our local Post Office & our mail lady cheerfully picks up my precious cargo every morning with a smile.  I don't have to leave the "farm" except to go to auctions & get groceries! Harry makes the trip to town to drop off any UPS shipments that we have.

In November 2007, I made the decision to open an Ebay store, to coincide with my auction selling. Through a lot of trial & error, & a major error on my part of permanently deleting some of my store listing pictures through Auctiva, I think I'm up & running with it now, with ever more tweaking to do along the way. I am using Auctiva to do my listings now & have found it to be a much faster, easier, & less expensive listing tool.

If you are trying to decide whether or not to do this on a part time or full time basis, be ready to put in long hours & hard work. You must do research, do complete descriptions in your listings, take LOTS of good pictures, & be available to answer questions constantly. Also, learn how to pack properly. You can never pack something TOO carefully. Patience is #1, being personable & friendly will fall right  into place. NEVER take out your frustrations on a customer!  There will always be that 1% that will be difficult, but the other 99% more than make up for them. Have fun at this & don't expect to become rich!