A Work at Home Mom’s Blog

Hope everybody had a nice Easter weekend. Mine was good.

On Saturday we went to my brother-in-law’s house for a cookout. I was dreading it, but we actually had a good time. But Pumpkin ended up bringing a puppy home, much to our chagrin. Don’t get me wrong, it’s adorable, as you can see in the picture. I just didn’t really want any more creatures to take care of. I think I’m going to have to send Pumpkin to Los Angeles detox rehab to get her over her pet addiction.

Sunday was fairly quiet. Hubby’s cousin came over and helped him work on his dirt bike, and we ate a nice, juicy slow-cooked ham for dinner. We bought Pumpkin some clothes and a little candy, and since she no longer believes in the Easter Bunny, I just threw them in a gift bag for her. She was very happy.

So that was my Easter weekend in a nutshell. Now it’s back to regularly scheduled programming.

I once told myself I’d never go back to punching a clock again. And yet I have.

I didn’t go out and get a “real” job. I just started keeping close tabs on the amount of time I’m spending on various projects. It started out of necessity for one particular project, but I decided to try it with all of my work. I just started yesterday, but it’s working out nicely so far.

The tool I’m using, which makes all of this super-easy, is Toggl. I’m using the free version, which so far meets my needs just fine, but they also have a paid version with more features.

Why am I doing this, you ask? A couple of reasons. For one, I wanted to see just how many hours of work I’m really getting in each day. Sometimes it seems like all I do is work, yet I don’t get anything done. Others it seems like I get an amazing amount accomplished in no time. Now I can have the numbers right in front of me and know just how long it takes me to do what. Another reason is that I wanted to see how much I’m making per hour. I don’t miss getting paid by the hour at all, but seeing my current income in those terms helps me remember that I’m not missing out by not doing the 9-to-5 thing.

This little experiment seems to be increasing my productivity, because I’ve been staying on task better knowing that the clock is ticking. Or maybe I just happen to be particularly productive right now and the time I’m keeping is reflecting that. We’ll see which is true after I’ve done this for a couple of weeks.

My computer was acting up a while back, and I did some troubleshooting with the help of the folks at Major Geeks. All the scans I did there turned up nothing, but the computer seemed to be doing better. I had to uninstall AVG Anti-Virus in order to run a certain program, and while I was at it I left it uninstalled and switched to Avast to see if I liked it any better.

It didn’t turn anything up either, but I liked it and kept it. When I started having problems again, I started poking around and found that it had a boot-time scanner that would directly scan the hard drive before Windows boots up. I set it up to scan, and it found several trojans and exploits, all in my Java cache.

I hoped that would be the end of it, but after several subsequent scans kept finding new stuff, I decided to take action. I installed the NoScript addon for Firefox. And I realized that just about every website I visit has some kind of script running.

I would expect to find scripts when visiting my online banking site, posting to my blog or even shopping for Yakima bike racks. But they’re even popping up on what appear to be static pages on reputable sites. I never knew that they were so widely used.

I just installed the addon a little while ago, so the jury is still out on how helpful it is. But I’m only setting it up to allow scripts on sites that I trust and need to use scripts to view properly. We’ll see how it goes.

I’m beginning to get a little overwhelmed with all of the work that’s coming my way. I snagged another writing contract that runs through September and will likely be extended beyond that. I’ve also been getting work off and on from my newly reacquired client, as well as the ongoing work that the awesome folks at Coupon Trunk provide each week. Add to that my 20 to 25 hours a week at my “job”, and I’m a busy lady.

Well, I wouldn’t say that I’m too busy by normal standards. But after just getting back on track to a somewhat normal life after having been almost completely incapacitated for months on end, it’s a bit nerve wracking. I’ve been barely making my deadlines, and I’ve been contending with writer’s block as well.

But I’ve got to think positively. If I don’t, and I let myself get all stressed out, all this work that I worked so hard to get is going to start crumbling away. And then I would be right back where I started. And quite frankly, I never, ever want to go back there again. I’m ready to get on with my life, get enough money coming in to keep us ahead and get some saved up, and start truly enjoying life again. If I have to work my butt off to make it to that point, so be it.

I haven’t had much time off lately, that’s for sure. Hubby and I have been needing to take a long weekend and go up to my mom’s to get some work done on some trees around her house, but between the insane weather and my schedule, it hasn’t happened yet. By the time I do get up there, I’ll probably be taking her some Mother’s Day flowers (and late ones at that)!

But I can live with that. And I can live with the missed opportunities to have an actual social life lately. The one thing that bothers me is not getting to spend much time with Hubby and Pumpkin. I’ve had to really struggle to make myself stay on task while they’re here, not because they’ve been bugging me to death – they’ve been surprisingly cooperative when I have work to do – but because I know they’re just in the other room and I want to be in there with them. I’ve given in more than I should lately, but I’m going to have to toughen up a bit. At least until the finances are looking better.

The whole balancing act between work and home life is never easy when you work from home. But I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Because I don’t have to let someone else raise my daughter, and I don’t have to worry about not being able to be there for her when she’s sick, needs to talk girl talk, wants me to go to a school function or otherwise needs me. No matter how busy I may be, I can rearrange my schedule so that I can be the Mom I want to be.