A Work at Home Mom’s Blog

I’ve been having a ridiculous amount of computer problems. I had a virus scare yesterday, because my computer went haywire when I booted it up. A window popped up saying that I couldn’t download that file because of security settings, but I wasn’t trying to download a file. Then my computer decided that it would be prudent to shut down, purportedly for some totally unrelated reason.

I had a ton of work to do, but I restarted, pulled the plug on my DSL and started a virus scan. It takes about 2 1/2 hours on this beast, so I cleaned house while I waited. But AVG didn’t find anything.

So I set about checking all of the processes that were running, looking up any unfamiliar ones. Nothing out of the ordinary. I finally decided that it must have been some program I had blocked because it froze up my computer trying to update itself, because the computer was acting normal (considering) by then. And it’s been known to pull stunts like shutting down every now and then, and it had been a while since it had done so.

There are times when I miss my old Commodore 64. Remember those? Man, were they ever slow. But that was par for the course back then, so although it was a bit annoying, I got over it. You could even get primitive tape drives for them that used audio cassettes! I never had one, but from what I hear they were slow as the dickens too.

Of course I had my share of frustrations out of old Commodore too. Sometimes I would accidentally hit the wrong key, and it would tell me to “press play on tape.” I couldn’t do that because I had no tape drive, but it wouldn’t let me do anything else. So I would have to restart, and if I was trying to play programmer (which I often did in my younger days), I would lose everything I had done so far. But at least it didn’t take long to boot up and get started again.

I guess I should be grateful that computers are easier to use and capable of doing more today. And if I had one that was worth a hoot, I would.

No doubt about it: I’ve been seriously stressed out lately. The finances have not been good lately, and it’s taking its toll. I’m looking for the men in white coats to come after me most any time now.

I’ve been working very hard to try to make things better, but it seems like I just get nowhere. And I’ve pretty much lost all concept of time. I signed up to do some articles last week and thought they were due tomorrow, but as it turned out they were due yesterday. If they hadn’t sent me an email reminder I would have lost them all. I didn’t get them all done, but I managed to plunk out a few.

I had more work that I thought was due at the end of the week, but is actually due tomorrow. And I also thought I had until the end of the week to pay the electric bill, but according to the automated phone call I just got, that’s due tomorrow too. Guess I’ll be needing an extension on that.

I’ll be so glad when I get all of my tax forms. If I don’t get them soon, I may just try to figure it all up on my own. Hubby already received his, and I have kept good records of my income. I need to get that done and get my refund already, so we can pay things up and have a little breathing room. Then maybe I’ll be able to retain my sanity.

I hate cold weather. Hate it, hate it, hate it. I guess it’s a good thing I never followed through with the hairbrained idea of moving up north when I was single. If I can’t stand the winters here, I can’t imagine how I would deal with them up there.

Right now, as I’m typing, it’s 12 degrees. It wasn’t much warmer than that during the day today. I went out to feed the dogs for Hubby around 5:30 or so, and I didn’t think I would be out there very long, so I didn’t bother putting on any gloves. But the puppy had her chain tangled up, so I had to fight with her to get it unhooked, unwrap it, and then fight with her again to get it hooked back on her collar. I also had to take my time walking up and down the hill since there’s still snow and ice out there. By the time I got back in, I couldn’t feel my hands.

Tomorrow is not supposed to be any better, but it’s supposed to get into the 30s and 40s later this week. Better break out the shorts and suntan lotion, cuz that will feel like a heat wave compared to this!

We’re not having a good week at my house. Hubby was supposed to get a bonus on his last paycheck, but it wasn’t on there. He says they are definitely going to get it, and that’s great and all, but there are bills that need to be paid now that we don’t have the money to pay.

I racked my brain last night to try to figure out a way to come up with the money we need to get through until he gets paid again. And I came up with nothing. Well, actually I did find some writing I can do, but by the time I get it finished it will probably be next week before I get paid. And, besides the loan company bugging us to death, the car insurance will be canceled by then if it’s not paid.

I’m trying to get in touch with the pawn shop to see what they’re taking right now. I hope they’ll let me bring in some CDs, DVDs and maybe a couple of small electronics. I’d be willing to take in both of the TVs and Hubby’s guitar too if they’d let me, but I would have a hard time getting them down the hill to my truck without falling and busting them because it’s icy out there.

I wish I could solve all this by cutting some fat from the budget, but there’s really nothing much there to cut. Our budget has been on Leptovox for some time now, so to speak. I just need to get more money coming in. Especially since Hubby is not going to be getting any overtime for a while now.

Oh well. Enough feeling sorry for myself. I’m not going to drive myself crazy with this. At least not until I’ve exhausted every possible option.

As you probably know if you’re a regular reader, I’m a firm believer in accepting oneself as one is. I personally weigh more now than I ever have in my entire life, but I don’t tend to obsess over it. While I know losing weight would make me feel better physically, those numbers on the scale usually have little impact on my self-image. Emphasize usually.

I went to the doctor yesterday because my sinuses have been giving me trouble lately. I was having a decent day considering how crappy I was feeling- until I stepped on the scales. I had gained five pounds since my last visit. Normally that wouldn’t bother me, but my last visit was only a few weeks ago. Yikes.

I almost asked the doctor to give me some of the best fat burners on the market, but I didn’t. My health insurance runs out at the end of the month, and I couldn’t justify paying out of pocket for them when I could probably do just as well with some lifestyle modifications. It’s just finding the willpower to make those changes.

Anyhoo, Hubby got home shortly after I got home from the doctor. He said his mom had invited us over for dinner, so off we went. As soon as we got over there, she told me to come into the kitchen. Guess what was there? Lots and lots of candy. Their neighbors had given it to them, and they wanted to spread the love. Oh, joy.

It wouldn’t have been so bad if it wasn’t all sour candy (my favorite). Lemonheads, SweetTarts, Spree, Airheads, you name it. Boxes upon boxes of it, and it wasn’t the stuff that stores throw out because it’s too old. Normally I would have asked questions, but their neighbors are all the time getting deals on stuff. And they just had to get that deal, on that candy, right when I needed it the least.

I tried to get away with just taking a couple of packs, but they wouldn’t hear of it. Between Pumpkin and me, we came home with half a grocery bag full of the stuff. Lovely. Maybe I can give some of it away. It’s calling my name, taunting me, and if it stays here too long, I’m not going to be able to resist.

I’ve come to the realization that backing up the important files on my computer is something that I really need to do. It has been giving me a lot of trouble lately, and I’d hate to lose all of my accounting records and stuff. The computer has decided that it no longer wants to let me print anything (it’s not my printer, because I’ve tried two different ones with no luck), so I can’t just print those out and put them in a safe place. I guess I’ll have to burn them onto a CD.

But even more important, to me at least, is my pictures. I have tons of them that I’ve never printed out, but I’d go crazy if I were to lose them. Kind of like my scrapbook full of newspaper clippings, wedding invitations, ticket stubs and other memorabilia from days gone by. I don’t look at them much, but they’re among my most prized possessions.

I’d like to put the stuff on thumb drives, but I don’t happen to have any. I should have ordered one with my Pepsi points, but I read bad reviews about the ones they were giving away so I didn’t. I suppose I’ll just try to cram the most important/treasured stuff on the few blank CDs I have. Better safe than sorry.

I know I’m one of many, many people across the country who’s saying this lately… but man, is it ever friggin cold! We’re used to cold temperatures during the winter here in the mountains, but this is the coldest it’s been since I moved here. I remember one winter up in Virginia when it got this cold, but I’m just not accustomed to temperatures this bone-chilling.

I can’t imagine how shocking this weather must be to people who live in more temperate places. Hubby’s cousins are up here this week from down the mountain, and they have just been flipping out over how cold it is. It’s colder than what they’re used to down there, and coming up here and experiencing winter in the mountains is just blowing their minds. It’d be kind of funny if I wasn’t freezing my butt off every time I walk out the door, too.

I’m just glad we haven’t gotten any snow to speak of. Just a little skiff here and there. It was enough to get them to close the schools early yesterday, but by the time they would have gotten out normally it was all gone anyway.

I just hope it isn’t like this all winter. We’ve still got a good two months to go, and maybe more. I’m just glad we have wood heat now. As much as I hate it, I can’t imagine having to pay for oil when it’s this cold.

We’ve been in our new (to us) home for about nine months now. We had grand plans when we bought this place, but unfortunately we’ve hardly ventured out of the planning phase. We did manage to get the roof done, which was certainly top priority. And we took out the ancient furnace and its surrounding closet and put in a wood stove. I’ve got mixed feelings about that, but it has already saved us an insane amount of money, so I suppose I can’t really complain.

But there is a lot more I want to do to this place. Hubby and I both agree that the ceilings in the living room and my office need to be redone. I want to either cover or replace the paneling on the walls in the same rooms, and the floors could use some work too. But I’d also love to spruce the place up beyond the basic needs. It’s amazing how small details can make such a difference in a home.

Trouble is, I’m pretty clueless when it comes to things like that. I considered going into interior design when I was in my teens, but when we studied it in home ec, I just couldn’t get into it and figured it wasn’t for me. Hubby, on the other hand, has no interest whatsoever in such things. Such subtleties are completely lost on him.

Lucky for me, there’s Inviting Home It’s a website that sells all sorts of interior design products. From details such as cabinet knobs and molding to lighting and benches, they’ve got the things you need to turn your home from drab to fab without a great deal of effort.

Now, some companies would just put all their offerings on a web page and assume that their customers would know what they’re doing. But not Inviting Home. They have lots of resources to show us how to use their products and help us come up with ideas for our own homes. That’s a big comfort to someone like me, who wouldn’t know what to do with corbels if someone gave me a truckload of them. Here are some of the resources you’ll find on their website:

• Plenty of decorating ideas. Whether you’re a bachelor trying to give your home a stylish yet masculine look or you’ve got an awesome fireplace that you want to accentuate, they’ll tell you what you need for the job.
• A home improvement blog with articles categorized by topic. There’s lots of great stuff here about how to choose the right accents for your home.
• An inspiration gallery with photos of their products installed in various decorating schemes. This is a great place to start if you have no idea in what direction you want to go.

I spent a lot of time browsing the site, and I’ve come up with a few ideas. Some new molding to replace the cheap-looking, drab stuff that’s up now, some ornate knobs for the kitchen cabinets, a low-profile chandelier for the kitchen… I could go on and on. I’ve got it bookmarked for when the time comes that we can seriously think about sprucing up this old house.

Yet another reason I hate winter: Snow days when I have truckloads of work to do!

They called school off yesterday, and for once it actually made a little bit of sense. We had an inch or two when we got up in the morning, and the road here hadn’t been touched as usual. Hubby said the walkway was very slick, too. So even though I really needed to work uninterrupted, I didn’t mind that they called it. I don’t want Pumpkin riding the bus, or my truck for that matter, on slick roads.

It snowed rather heavily until around lunchtime, but then it quit and the sun came out. By the time Hubby got home from work, the road was completely clear and there were only patches of snow on the ground. Pumpkin was disappointed because Hubby had said he’d take her up on the hill where the blackberry plants are to sled if it didn’t melt, but I was relieved. Heh.

There was no precipitation overnight. But this morning came, and the radio stated that there would once again be no school. They said there was still snow and ice on a lot of secondary roads. WTH??? The sun completely took care of it here, with no help whatsoever. I realize that some places get very little sun and traffic, but come on! The state had plenty of time to get rid of that. But for some stupid reason they didn’t do it. Par for the course around here.

It burns me up that the salt and scraper trucks are everywhere when we just get a little sprinkling, but if it snows enough to cover the ground, they’re nowhere to be found. Even if we get a pretty good snow, after it quits, they don’t do anything to the back roads (and sometimes even the main roads) for days. It’s so aggravating.

Aren’t we all? But for me, it’s now official. This blog is featured in Bizymoms.com’s Articles and Advice section!

BizyMoms is a very informative website for work at home moms. It includes tons of information to help those who are trying to get started working from home. Had I discovered it a couple of years sooner, I might have become a WAHM long before I did.

I’m proud to be a part of such a wonderful resource! Bookmark that first link, because they will be adding more WAHM blogs soon.