A Work at Home Mom’s Blog

Guess what I just did? Give up? Well, I’ll tell you. I just finished watching a sneak preview presentation of Peter Walsh’s new [IN]PLACE organization system, which debuts at OfficeMax next week. Yes, I’m talking about Peter Walsh from Clean Sweep and The Oprah Winfrey Show. Cool, huh?

I’ve got to take the daughter to the doctor right this second, so all I’ll say for now is that it’s friggin’ awesome! But not to worry, I’ll be back with more details. If this stuff can help my disorganized butt, it’s something everybody needs to know about.

Wow, has it really been almost two weeks since my last post? Where has the time gone?

My little unplanned hiatus started out as an effort to get a couple of assignments done on time. There was about a week last month when I could not concentrate, no matter how hard I tried, and of course that really threw me off track. The deadlines got closer and closer, but I just couldn’t seem to make any headway. Luckily, a couple of days before they arrived, I had a huge burst of creative energy. I was still a day late on each of them, but the clients were understanding. And on the one I was feeling seriously insecure about, I did a good enough job to earn praise for it. Yay me!

Once all that was done, I decided that I needed a little time off. All of my March assignments were done, and I didn’t have anything due until mid-April. So I spent some time with Hubby and Pumpkin. And this week, I’ve been spending some time doing some spring cleaning. Unfortunately I haven’t been as energetic with that as I was with my writing, but I’ve made some progress. I still have a long way to go, though.

Now I need to try to get my head back in the game. I’m still going to be doing some spring cleaning, but I’m going to start working on the assignments I have, too. I also need to find some more work to do so we can keep our heads above water. But I’m hoping that this little break I took will help me regain focus and get more work done in less time. It can’t have hurt, because I truly needed it.

I’ve been reading about bartering in small business on a forum I belong to. The thought has crossed my mind before, but I never really explored the possibility. Until now.

I was hunting for a new theme for my blog the other day, and I found one in particular I liked. It had this awesome retro look and color scheme. But it looked more like a music blog than a diary/working from home blog. I kept searching, and found a couple more I liked reasonably well, but nothing to write home about. I uploaded the final candidates to my hosting account, then proceeded to try them out. The two that I liked best were broken, and I don’t know enough about WordPress themes to fix them.

Then it hit me like a ton of bricks: Why not see about bartering for a custom theme? I can’t offer gold necklaces or diamond rings, but I would be quite willing to do some writing in exchange for a good theme.

So, are there any WordPress theme designers out there who would be interested in some good articles for a blog or website? Or perhaps a bio or special report? I know basic HTML and can write for SEO purposes. If you’re interested, drop me a line via the contact form.

I knew that I wanted to be my own boss from the time I was in middle or high school. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, though. It turned out that it was right under my nose the whole time. But I considered a number of different options before I figured that out.

For a while, I wanted to own a clothing boutique. I had a unique sense of style, but clothes I liked were not easy to find in the area where I grew up. I traveled to the nearest small city (about 45 minutes away) to buy most of my clothes, and even there I had to scour the racks to find things to suit my discriminating tastes. But I rarely left empty-handed.

You’d never know that today. Since I had Pumpkin and gained a lot of weight, I haven’t had the money to buy a lot of clothes. I still have my own style when I buy something for myself, but most of what I wear is hand-me-downs and whatever is cheap. Maybe I should have opened a boutique after all. But I don’t know if that would have made me happy.

I also considered opening up a franchise restaurant. I read extensively about it in entrepreneur magazines, and it seemed like an easy way to get started in business if you could come up with the initial investment. But unless you’re born into money or save up for many years, that’s easier said than done. Besides, once I thought about it, that didn’t really fit with my desire to be my own boss. I know I would have been the owner and gotten to hire, fire and oversee employees, but that’s not what attracted me to self-employment. And franchises come with their own rules and regulations, which franchisees must follow.

All I really wanted was to be a boss to myself. I’ve supervised others, but it’s not really my cup of tea. I can handle it just fine, but I don’t particularly like it. I just liked the idea of not having someone else looking over my shoulder all the time. I’ve had a couple of bosses that were pretty good about that, but I’d rather just be accountable to myself.

There are times when I could use some supervision, but I think I do alright considering. There’s definitely room for improvement, but I’m working on it.

So what does self-employment mean to you? Is it being The Boss, or having unlimited income potential, or is it simply being able to do your own thing with only clients to answer to? That’s an important question to ask yourself before you even consider starting a business.

I’ve always been fascinated with marketing. My mom told me that when I was a toddler and she was watching TV with me, I would doze off during the shows but wake up as soon as I heard the jingles from the commercials. I’m one of those people who hates football but has often watched the Super Bowl just to see the commercials. I’m not easily persuaded to buy stuff, but I like to see how it’s being marketed.

I took marketing and advertising in college. I did quite well in both subjects. We had to set up an advertising campaign for our final project, and my professor liked mine so well that she gave me an A+ in spite of serious math errors in the budget section. Yet when it comes to marketing myself as a freelance writer, I don’t do very well.

I guess it’s because I don’t really like to toot my own horn. I ran across a website of another freelance writer the other day, and it was very nice and professional. I browsed around a bit, and thought she must get lots of clients. But when I looked at her published works page, I saw that she had much less experience than me. Two thoughts ran through my head: That it takes courage to present yourself that well when you’re first starting out, and that I needed to get my portfolio site started because I now knew that it wouldn’t be the least impressive one out there.

Maybe I could benefit from some sales training. Salespeople know how to exude confidence and persuade others to buy whatever they have to offer. But really, I guess I’ve got it in me if I can just let it shine through. For the first few jobs I actually got, I remember trying to think like someone who was really confident in her abilities. Obviously it worked, because I had no experience except for personal blogging, and I got them anyway.

Confidence hasn’t really been my strong point lately, though. I know I can write, but thanks to my lack of concentration, it has been slow going. And for some reason I’ve been more critical of myself than usual. I’ve got to work on both of those things so I can keep moving forward.

I’ve had my new computer for almost a week now, and so far I love it. It’s so liberating to not have to wait five minutes just to check my email. I had a bad week last week with my ADD, yet I still managed to get my work done on schedule. How awesome is that?

Now if I can just reign in my brain and stay focused, I should be able to get more work done in much, much less time. I knew my old machine was ridiculously slow, but I don’t think I fully grasped how slow until I started working on this one. I can actually write an article in a reasonable amount of time now. Part of it is because of the faster computer itself, and part of it is the fact that I can be more productive when I’m not mentally (and sometimes literally) screaming at the computer all the time.

Hubby still won’t let the fact that I bought a new one rest. He nearly went into fits when his friend told him that he had one he would have sold me for $20. But when I asked him about it, he said it had Windows 98 and needed a memory upgrade. If I wanted to go that route, I could have done so with my old computer. If I could upgrade the memory myself, I would have come out a little bit ahead by the time I bought Vista and some memory. But I can’t, so that really wouldn’t have made much sense. But try telling Hubby that.

He’ll get over it in time. If not, I just don’t really care any more.

As you probably know if you’re a regular reader, I have needed a new computer for a very long time. This one gets quirkier and less reliable every day. So I decided that if we got a decent tax refund this year, I was going to get one. If my computer dies, I can’t work, and if I can’t work, I can’t make any money.

Hubby has known this for months. He has also known that we desperately need to get caught up on the bills so we don’t have to worry so much, and buy some things we’ve needed for a long time but haven’t had the money to get. But when I got the taxes done, all he could think about was buying something he wants.

His argument? That I’m making something that I “want” top priority. As in my new computer. I’ve tried calmly explaining to him that I wouldn’t be so adamant about it if I didn’t need it for my livelihood. I’ve tried bringing up the fact that I bought him a 4-wheeler that he certainly didn’t need, not with my “share” of the tax money, but with money I worked my butt off for. And I’ve tried telling him to f*** off. But he’s still being a big baby over it.

Things always get hairy when we get our tax refund. Every year, it never fails, I want to put it toward things we need and maybe save some, and he wants to blow it. So far we’ve always divided it down the middle and used our halves as we saw fit. But if we do that this year, I’ll be buying a computer and using the rest of mine to pay some on the bills without making much progress. And he will waste his half. We can’t afford to do things that way.

It’s not like I want to use all of the money to go on one of those wild weekend getaways without him. I just want to be able to do my work without sitting around waiting on my computer to cooperate half the day, and without having to worry about losing the articles I’m working on (yes, that has happened a couple of times). I have every intention of making sure he has some money to spend after doing that and paying the bills. But he just wants to be a big baby about it.

Am I being unreasonable? I know a properly functioning computer is not too much to ask, especially when it’s what enables me to help pay the bills. And as far as the bills go, I think I should be able to get them caught up without any static. After all, I’m the one who has to juggle them constantly. He might earn the money to pay a good portion of them, but if I didn’t send it in, they wouldn’t get paid.

I hate being in charge of the finances. It’s a completely thankless job, and one that I’m not particularly good at, but I do my best.

Last week, before I started feeling so horrible, I decided to clean out my office. I was working on the taxes and needed to find some old bank statements, so I figured it was as good of a time as any to do it. After all, I’d be rifling through everything anyway.

It took several hours, but I finally got just about everything that doesn’t belong in here out. I’ve filed all of the bills and papers that were lying around (well, except for one pile on my desk that I missed, but I’ll get to that). Now I just need to get all my pictures up on the walls, and it will almost look like a real office.

I found a bunch of stuff that I had completely forgotten about. One of the things I found was a six-pack of lilac candles. They smell awesome, and they’ll look great in my votive candle holders. I also found some of my clothes that should have been in the closet, and some knives that Hubby didn’t even know he had.

Now, all I need is my new computer to make it complete. I’m counting the days until the tax refund gets here and I can get it!

Hubby and I were talking about money issues the other day, and he got to talking about how he wished he could get his own business started. I wish he could too, but he never wants to do anything of the sort except when we’re extremely low on funds. Back when we had money he was interested, but wouldn’t come off of the money to get started.

I think part of his problem is that he doesn’t really know what he wants to do. Sometimes he talks about putting one of those car lifts in the garage and doing oil changes and other maintenance. Sometimes he says he wants to get into masonry. The most frequent thing he talks about doing is yard work and other odd jobs, but he’s already found out that there’s not much money in that around here, especially for a small operation.

At any rate, I would love to see him get his own business started. As hard as it is sometimes, it’s so rewarding to have that kind of control over your life. When the time comes that we have some extra money again, I hope he’ll seize the opportunity and try to get something started.

I still haven’t gotten a couple of my tax forms, but I couldn’t wait any longer. I had to get started on my taxes. Money is ridiculously tight right now, and we need that refund. And seeing how ridiculously tight money is, I decided to bite the bullet and try to do the taxes myself, against my better judgment.

So I went for the TurboTax Free File option, as I’ve done for the past few years. Up until this year I was quite happy to use it, because my taxes weren’t terribly complicated. I had enough home business income to make it a little more complex last year, but at no time did I feel that I was in serious danger of screwing up. This year, however, is a different story.

Not only do I have my business income, but we also bought a home. Now, buying a home changes your taxes a lot on its own, but when you have a home business, it makes it seriously confusing! I had two different home offices last year, so I have to figure expenses for both of them. And then there are the subtle and often unclear differences between owning a mobile home and owning a house, which I’m having serious trouble with. Ugh.

TurboTax keeps suggesting that I purchase the edition for small business owners, and the one for new home owners. Can you even do both? Not that it matters, because I can’t afford it. Both of them combined would be much less than paying a professional, but when you’re rolling up change to buy groceries, it’s just not an option. So I’ll just have to keep wrestling with it until I’m comfortable enough to file.

At least it looks like we’ll get a decent refund. If we didn’t need to catch up on the bills and get a new computer, I’d put it toward some luggage and a much-needed long vacation. But if nothing else, maybe having it to get us caught back up on the bills will make it possible for us to go somewhere this summer. I’m not getting my hopes up, but maybe.