A Work at Home Mom’s Blog

Since I was a young teenager, I’ve had terribly oily skin on my face. It’s one of the things that contributed to all those breakouts through the years, I guess. The good thing about it is that I could put pretty much anything on my face and not have to worry about dry skin. I didn’t even have to use moisturizer.

Well, those days are over. It sucks trying to effectively treat the world’s most stubborn case of adult acne while having to be careful not to overdry your skin. Mine is still oily in general, but after I use my acne scrub, it feels rather parched. So I have to make it a point to use moisturizer every single time.

I know what dry skin feels like, because I get it on my legs and hands during the winter. But it feels so strange having dry skin on my face after all these years of never having to worry about it. Just another sign that I’m getting older, I guess.

For the past week or so, I’ve been struggling with really low energy levels. I spent most of Saturday in bed because I just didn’t have the energy to even sit in front of the computer (or even the TV for that matter). Part of that was my fault, because I forgot to take one of my medications the day before and was dealing with withdrawal. I’m usually fine once I take one and give it a few hours to build back up in my system, but even that didn’t help much.

Yesterday was much the same. I was able to make an effort, but it took me all day and half the night to get the bare minimum of work I needed to do done. And I can’t blame that on missing a dose.

I think I’ve got a sinus infection, so that could have a lot to do with it. But I’m not really feeling that bad except for being tired, and sinus infections don’t usually drag me down so badly. Maybe I need some good vitamins, or a round of thermotox to degunk my system.

I’ll have to get to the doctor sometime this week if at all possible so I can get my sinuses checked out, and I’ll ask him about it then. Maybe he can prescribe something, or at least tell me something over the counter that will help. I’ve gotta do something, because it’s pretty bad when you can barely muster the energy to sit in front of the computer and type.

I was under the impression that spring started a week ago, but according to the weather here, I was wrong. School was called off today due to snow. That’s right, snow. It wasn’t a blizzard or anything – nothing our French Canadian friends would be getting out their caméscopes (camcorders in English) to record. And not anything to write home about here, for that matter. Just annoying since the weather should be warming up right now.

But I don’t know why I’m surprised. Spring is always highly unpredictable in these parts. One of the biggest snows I remember came in April, and that was when I was younger and lived in the foothills. I’m sure they got much more up here in the mountains. And then there was the year that we had regular frosts throughout May.

The local weather website is calling for cold and rainy weather through the coming weekend. They’re saying that it should warm up next week, and I hope they’re right. I’m ready for warm weather to get here and stay here for a while.

No worms for me.

I’ve been trying to get up and get my work done for my new job as early as possible this week. It hasn’t exactly worked out as well as I had hoped, though. On Monday I got up and turned my computer on only to find that I was having major startup problems. I had similar problems over the weekend, ran a virus scan, found some minor stuff, and got rid of it. I thought that had fixed it, but I was wrong.

After running every type of scan I could find and turning up nothing else, I finally found out that my new printer was the culprit. Now I have to make sure that the USB cable is unhooked whenever I start up or shut down my computer. Nice.

Anyway, all that really ate into my work day, and I ended up having to work a couple of hours in the evening. Yesterday I got up and got everything done by early afternoon. Today I got started as soon as Pumpkin got on the bus, and managed to get an hour in before Hubby got up. I stopped to talk to him, and made the mistake of lying down to rest my back, which has been giving me trouble for the past few weeks. I was still laying down after he left, and somehow I ended up going to sleep. And of course I didn’t wake up until shortly before lunchtime.

I worked with only a couple of short breaks until Pumpkin got home, and then I ended up crashing out for another hour. I didn’t have a clue as to why I was staying so sleepy, but now I’m starting to feel a sinus infection coming on. I guess that explains it.

Anyway, I didn’t get all of my work done until late, thanks to the Thunderstorm That Wouldn’t Die. I would have forged ahead if I had a surge protector for my phone line and a UPS, but I don’t, so I didn’t. No way I’m taking a chance on frying my computer or losing data if I can help it.

Now I’m all caught up, and I need to try to get ahead. I need to start looking at this year’s trends in prom dresses so I can blog about them for Coupon Trunk. I’ve also got some other writing to do for them, and would like to get ahead on some of my writing for one of my ghostwriting clients. I had hoped to do my hourly work in the morning and my writing work in the evening, but so far that’s not working out as well as I’d hoped. I’ll get into some sort of routine eventually, though.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably heard of Groupon. They feature daily deals from businesses in cities across the country that often save you 50% or more. That’s great for those who live in those cities, but what about us country folk?

Good thing DealPulp came along. They work similarly to Groupon, but instead of local deals, they feature deals from online retailers that anyone, anywhere in the United States can take advantage of. I got an Amazon gift certificate for half price there as my first deal. Not bad!

You can sign up for email alerts about their featured deals, so you don’t have to worry about missing something awesome. And if you sign up today, you get a $3 credit that you can use on your next purchase. You’ll also get other opportunities to earn credits – I think I’ve got something like $8 in credits sitting in my account right now, just waiting for the right deal. And in case you’re wondering, that amount will actually totally cover some deals!

If you’re not signed up for DealPulp, take this opportunity to do so and get some free money to spend there. You’ll be glad you did.

Just wanted to pop in and let everybody know that I’m still around. I’ve just been really busy and had a lot on my plate and on my mind lately, and haven’t gotten around to blogging. No big catastrophes, no depressive episodes, just life happening.

I’m still waiting to see if I passed the last qualification test I took for that job. I really hope I did. I’m also scheduled to take an exam for another company that does basically the same thing, but I haven’t heard as many good things about them. At least it’s something to fall back on if this doesn’t work out, though.

I had a busy weekend, what with Pumpkin having a sleepover, she and her friend attending a birthday party, all of us driving up and spending the night with my mom, driving back, and then hanging out with Hubby’s cousin’s family. By the time we got home on Sunday evening, we were all absolutely tuckered out. I slept very well that night, for once.

Now I’m home alone, getting ready to eat a bite and then tackle some writing work while I have the house to myself. Maybe it won’t be so long before my next post.

Two or three weeks ago, I started having trouble with Windows Live Mail. I’ve been using it since I installed Windows 7, and up until then I loved it. But it started giving me error messages when I would try to read my emails or delete spam, so I started looking for solutions. The official guide was no help whatsoever, and what other few suggestions I found online from users didn’t do the trick, either. So rather than fight with it any longer, I decided to go looking for another email client.

I once used Thunderbird, but I wasn’t too impressed with it. It did well for a while too, but eventually started acting all hinky. And no amount of compressing and cleaning out my email database would fix it, either. I was getting ready to purchase MS Office, which comes with Outlook except in the Home and Student version. And that version had everything else I needed, and since I haven’t used Outlook in years and have no idea how reliable it is now, I decided not to spend the extra dough to find out.

Then I found out that the Opera browser has a built-in email client. Knowing that such lesser-used browsers are also less prone to hacking, viruses and malware, and seeing how it was a free download, I decided to give it a try.

Well, I’ve been using it for a couple of weeks now, and it’s, I dunno, meh. I’ve run into a few glitches and compatibility issues as far as the browser goes. The email program is alright, but it took me a while to figure it out since the instructions for it are sparse and hard to find. But once I got the hang of it, I found that it’s quite simple to use and keeps things organized rather nicely.

I’m kind of stuck with Opera for now since it’s the only working email program I’ve got. So I use the browser quite a bit in the interest of simplicity. But I’m still a die-hard Firefox fan, so I pull it up when I start having issues with Opera. And despite being pretty lukewarm about IE, I have to use it for some of my work. That means that I now have three browsers pinned to my taskbar, and at any given time am likely to have at least two of them running. Good thing my machine has enough memory to handle all that.

All this browser switching kind of reminds me of looking for bridesmaid dresses. The one that’s in a nice, tasteful color (has a good email program) always has an obscenely large bow (compatibility issues). And the one you like is never the one the bride-to-be (client) chooses, but you just have to go with what she wants anyway since it is, after all, her wedding.

Enough with the analogies for now. Just know that I am on the hunt for a better email solution that allows me to keep my current email addresses and has nothing to do with any company that is known for blatantly disregarding user privacy (i.e. Google or Facebook). If you have any suggestions, I’d love to hear them.

I spent most of last week concentrating on training for my new job. I had teleconferences, self-study courses, homework and tests to do, so of course it took up quite a bit of my time. I had planned to do some writing each day, but that kind of fell by the wayside.

At least I haven’t gotten behind on anything yet. And I’d like to keep it that way. It seems like when I get behind, it takes forever to catch back up. But I’m hopeful that I won’t have to worry about it now that I don’t have constant writer’s block any more. I’ve been using my planner to keep track of deadlines and things I need to do each day, and that’s helped quite a bit.

I’m just so thankful that I’m finally getting back to the point where I can make a decent living from home again. There for a while I thought I might have to take a local job, and I hated the idea of that. Not only would that seriously cramp my freedom and cause transportation dilemmas until I can get my car fixed, but there also just aren’t many jobs to be had around here. Factories have been shutting down like crazy for the past few years, and even healthcare jobs are becoming more scarce. All that’s really left are jobs that barely pay enough to cover the gas it takes to get there and back.

But as I was saying, I’m trying my best to stay on top of things. Fortunately, it hasn’t been as much of a struggle as it once was. Time will tell if I can keep up the momentum I’ve got going, but I’m feeling good about it.

As I mentioned a few posts ago, Hubby bought himself a hunting rifle with part of our tax refund. He needed his scope put on and the gun lined up, so he took it to the local mom-and-pop hardware store. They said it would be ready in three or four days. It has now been over a week.

Needless to say, he’s getting rather anxious. He says he’s going up there tomorrow, and one way or another he’s coming back with his gun. I can’t say I blame him. They could have just been honest with him if it was going to take longer than that. He probably would have given them his business anyway. But now, once he gets his gun back, he probably won’t ever buy anything there again.

If I decide to buy him any hunting stuff for his birthday or Christmas, I’ll probably go elsewhere as well. Maybe I’ll go online and order him a nice Uncle Mikes belt pouch for his ammo or something. I’m all for supporting local businesses, but when they take their customers for granted, it’s time to go elsewhere.