A Work at Home Mom’s Blog

It looks like my motivation has made a comeback, and that’s great. Now I’ve got to find some paying work to put it toward. I’m hoping to once again become a full-time freelance writer, so that Hubby won’t have to agonize so much about not being able to work, and neither of us will have to fret about the bills constantly.

It’s rough on Hubby not being able to be the breadwinner any more, or even to make a contribution. His abundance of natural testosterone keeps telling him that it’s not right for me to support him. But I see nothing wrong with it. It would be different if he were able to work and just too lazy to do so, but that’s not the case at all. He has always been a hard worker when he was able to work. I think that’s a big part of the reason why his back is so messed up now – because he worked too hard and too much.

If I can get back to making as much money as I was when I was working full-time hours, things would be okay. I would still have a flexible schedule, so I wouldn’t have to sacrifice much family time. And maybe I could finally quit juggling the bills and just pay them when they come due. That would really be nice.

The Head Cold from Hell seems to finally be going away, at least for me. I think poor Pumpkin is getting it, though. At least she hasn’t had to worry about missing school, because it’s been called off all week due to the dreadful weather we’ve been having.

I’ve had to pamper her today since she wasn’t feeling well, in addition to trying to get myself back into the groove. So I’m up late tonight. It was the only way to get some peace and quiet so I could actually get a thing or two done. I haven’t accomplished as much as I had hoped to, but at least I’m getting something done.

I can already tell it’s going to be hard getting my motivation back. It always is whenever something breaks it. But I’ve got to do it. I’ve been working on minimizing my online distractions by doing things like organizing my Firefox bookmarks and unsubscribing from RSS feeds that are not work-related. Maybe that way I’ll spend less time doing things like reading news that isn’t all that important or comparing prices on Xbox 360 HDMI cables and more time bringing home the bacon.

I’ve also started utilizing a planner again. I’ve tried doing that on several occasions, but I always seem to give up on it after a few weeks. At least this time I didn’t buy one. I printed out a free one from KristensGuide.com. Actually I just printed out the first few weeks of the year since I didn’t have much ink, but if I can make myself keep using it I’ll print out the whole year. I hope I can, because it seems to increase my productivity quite a bit.

I’m slightly behind on my work since I had to take several days off, but I hope to be caught up by next week. If I can do that, maybe my motivation will return and all will be well.

I’m up late tonight. That hasn’t really been the norm lately, because I got into the habit of trying to fight my natural night owl tendencies and go to bed early with Hubby. But during my bouts of insomnia, that did nothing but make for a hellish night and a rough next day. So I’ve decided that I’m going to start going to bed when I’m good and ready unless I have a compelling reason to do otherwise.

Another thing that’s not quite the norm: I’m not up playing games or reading about the best diet pills for women. I’m actually getting some work done. How about that? The words have started flowing much more freely, and I hope they continue to do so. Now if I can just keep myself focused, maybe, just maybe, I can start making a decent amount of money again. That would be very, very nice.

It’s almost 2:00 AM, so I’ll probably head to bed before long. I’ll get a couple hours of sleep, get up and get Pumpkin off to school, and then go back to bed until around 11:00. That schedule might sound strange to some, but it’s more or less in line with how my body and mind operate these days. Even if I go to bed early and am able to sleep, I usually get so sleepy after Pumpkin gets on the bus that I end up going back to sleep until about the same time. So it looks like the best thing I can do, for both my sanity and my productivity, is quit fighting the way I’m wired and just go with it.

Whenever someone asks me what I do for a living, and I tell them I’m a writer, they want to know what kind of books I write. And then I have to tell them that I don’t write books, that I write stuff for the Web. Some think that’s even better, others take that as reason not to take me seriously, and others give me a puzzled look.

I like what I do, but I would like to write a book some day. I don’t mean printing something off and putting it through a Velo Bind machine, or putting out an ebook (although I hope to eventually have a few of those under my belt, too), but actually writing something good enough to be published. I know I’ve got it in me, it’s getting it formulated and on paper that’s the hard part.

I know that this is NaNoWriMo month, but I didn’t have the courage or ambition to participate this year. Maybe next year, if things are better for me by then. And yes, I’ll definitely be posting updates if I do.

Not much has changed since I last blogged. I’ve still been suffering from a major lack of energy, yet writing has come pretty easily when I can get motivated enough to do it. I read in some phenphedrine reviews that it gives you lots of energy… maybe I should give that a try.

Hubby has been trying to talk me into going to the doctor over some feminine problems I’ve been having, but I’m trying to hold out a little longer. That could very well be a big part of the reason I have no energy, but if that’s the worst it does to me, I can’t see spending money we can’t afford to spend on yet another doctor visit. I’m at least going to give it until next week unless other problems develop.

Despite being tired all the time and having a bit of anxiety due to the health issues and other minor stuff, I’ve been in pretty good spirits. And that’s a good thing. Hopefully I’ll be able to fight through the fog and turn some of this creativity that’s dying to get out into dollars.

You’d never know it judging by my lack of blog posts since Halloween, but I’ve discovered that my ability to write has not disappeared forever. And that makes me happy. Well, kind of.

Actually, my mood has been, I dunno… kinda “meh” lately. I’m not all bouncy and bubbly, but not deeply darkly depressed, either. As for my energy level, it has been pretty low. Good because I’ve been sleeping much better than usual, but bad because I’ve been sleeping too much and having a lot of trouble getting motivated to do anything at all. But, when I’m able to make myself sit down and write, the words have been flowing almost as easily as they did when I first started writing. And while that hasn’t been enough to give me a big mood boost, it does ease my mind a bit.

I still haven’t decided whether or not this is an overall improvement. Ideally, I’d like to have plenty of energy and be happy at all times. And while being depressed sucks, not feeling much of anything isn’t so great, either. I guess I’ll just keep hoping that this is the beginning of better things to come and see how it pans out.

Rearranging the living room! All I can say is it’s about time.

Well, actually, I’ve got a whole lot more to say about it. For one thing, the timing could have been better. Here’s how the whole thing came to fruition. Hubby went to the chiropractor last week, and they said that his back was improving and he could start doing a little bit. A couple of weeks ago, they told him not to even do so much as wash a dish. So that was good news… sort of. The problem is, when they told him that, he took it as permission to do anything he damn well pleased. And after sitting around for so long, he wanted to do all sorts of stuff.

The first thing he did was push mow the yard, since the riding mower is out of commission. Then he decided to clean off the front porch, which was a huge mess. Then he decided that since I wasn’t motivated enough to have already started on it, that he would start on the spring cleaning. And the first thing he wanted to tackle was the living room.

I had actual paying work I could have been doing, but I knew that he was overdoing it, and I wasn’t about to let him do it all himself. So on Monday, we got started. The living room was pretty messy, and it took a while just to get it straightened up. The carpet was ridiculously dirty, thanks to my barely functioning vacuum cleaner. It took him a while, but he finally got it to work reasonably well, and I did the vacuuming. And then he said it was time to rearrange the furniture.

As much as I wanted to rearrange, and as many times as he had planned to help me do it and then changed his mind, I tried to talk him out of it. I knew he didn’t need to be moving furniture with his back just finally starting to heal. But he wouldn’t budge, so once again, I figured the best thing I could do was help. So I did.

The living room looked great. But by the time it was all said and done, I felt like I had been to the gym and made the rounds on all the fitness equipment they had. And I knew if I was that tired, it couldn’t have been good for him. So when he mentioned doing some more cleaning on Tuesday, I begged and pleaded with him to take a day off. It wasn’t easy, but I finally talked him into it.

It’s a good thing I did. Yesterday, he was really feeling it. He kept wanting to do stuff anyway, but I put my foot down. And I know he had to be hurting, or he wouldn’t have listened.

He seems to be feeling even worse today. He’s hardly mentioned doing any more cleaning, and he sat around all morning playing video games. I wish he would learn to pace himself. I was actually relieved when his mom called and asked him to come over and sit with his grandpa while they went to town. Now I have the house to myself for a while. After I get a few things done on the computer, I’m going to get to work on the kitchen. Hopefully I’ll be done with it by the time he gets back, and he won’t decide to move on to another room.

So in a nutshell, I’m delighted that we finally got the living room rearranged. It’s got a lot more space, and looks 200% better. But I wish Hubby would have done it when his back wasn’t in such bad shape. Now I’m going to have to push myself to try to get the whole house cleaned up as quickly as possible, because if I don’t, he’ll be right back at it as soon as he starts feeling a little better.

On vacation in Hawaii? No, but I wish. Snorkeling in Australia? That would be nice too, but I’m not going there, either. Hunting for jobs in Philadelphia PA? Nope.

Give up? I’m finally going to see my mom after trying to all winter. Weather has prevented safe travel up there for most of the past few months, and then money troubles came into the picture. But I’ve scraped up enough for gas to get up there and back, after reserving enough to pay the mortgage and another bill. I don’t have enough to pay anything else until the tax refund gets here, so I might as well get up there, right?

Pumpkin is all excited about it. She misses her Mamaw so much! So I guess I’d better stop blogging and hit the road. Later!

Hi there. Remember me? I used to blog here. Haven’t been doing that so much lately, though.

The new year hasn’t been kind to me so far, and that’s why I haven’t been around. I could write a big, long post about it, but I don’t think I will. I’d rather just forget about it all, and bits and pieces will probably come out in future posts anyway. So I’ll try not to bore you to death with details here.

But in summary, I’ve been horribly ill, finally got on medication for depression and panic attacks, and had to contend with major plumbing problems all last week. I spent a lot of time when I didn’t feel like doing anything but lying in bed waiting around in various hardware stores, looking at fancy Whirlpool dishwashers and Toto toilets that I can’t afford while waiting on employees to help me. A few hundred dollars later, we finally got the water going again.

Things are finally somewhat back to normal, so maybe I’ll get something accomplished today. The jury’s still out on whether or not the medication (Prozac, to be specific) will help. I started it on New Year’s Day, so the two week mark is coming up, and that’s how long the doctor said it would take to kick in. I hope it does the trick.

I am finally, finally, finally caught up on my work. I feel like a giant weight has been lifted off of my chest. If I smoked, I’d probably be handing out cigars right about now. I’m that thrilled.

Hubby has already laid down the law: He says if I don’t take a long weekend this week, he’s disposing of my computer. So I guess I had better follow orders, huh? But then I was planning to do that anyway.

For now I’ve got to work on getting ahead. I’ve got today and tomorrow to get as much as I can done. Maybe I’ll make some headway. The words have been flowing better for the past couple of days, and I would almost just keep on going as long as they keep coming to me. But I know that if I don’t take a break, I’m going to end up in the same boat all over again. And that would be very, very bad. I’ve already decided that if I get as far behind this month as I have been getting, I’m going to go job hunting and give up on writing (at least for now). And I certainly don’t want it to come to that.

Anyway, I just wanted to let those of you who have expressed concern (and by the way, thank you so much) that things are going better now. I’m in a much better frame of mind, and I’m actually feeling fairly optimistic. Here’s hoping that things continue to go well!