A Work at Home Mom’s Blog

It appears that I still haven’t recovered from the whole writer’s block thing I had last month. Self-doubt is creeping in, and it’s really driving me nuts. Not to mention that I’m behind on my work yet again.

I’ve seriously considered going back to a regular job, and that’s not improving my mental state at all. I hate the thought of going back to working on someone else’s schedule, to make money for some faceless corporation. But even more than that, I hate the idea of no longer being able to call myself a writer. I truly love writing (at least when I’m not fighting tooth and nail to formulate a sentence), and when someone asks me what I do for a living, I’m proud to tell them. I couldn’t say that when I was flipping burgers, or running a machine, or even overseeing customer service.

I really think I need some medication or some therapy or something. But I can’t afford to go to the doctor over it. I’m going to have to either dig out a letter I got months ago or see if they’ll accept a statement from the Medicaid office before I can get a discount at the doctor’s office again, and even if I do, I’ll have to pay full price for my prescriptions. If only I could find some low cost health insurance, that wouldn’t be a problem. But as it stands there’s not much I can do about the situation.

It looks like I’m going to have to postpone my Windows 7 party and cancel my other weekend plans so I can sit in front of the computer and wish I could write. I probably won’t get much more work done than if I had kept my plans, but I couldn’t live with not being able to at least say I tried to get everything done.

Beyond that, I’m totally at a loss for what to do. I know I have to do something to support my family, and I know how I want to accomplish that. But for some reason, the words are just out of reach. And even if I wasn’t so opposed to reentering the job market, there just aren’t many jobs to be had right now.

Well, I guess I’m done ranting and raving for now. At least I managed to write a somewhat coherent blog post. Maybe now I can work my way up to an article or two.

You know something’s up when I haven’t blogged for nearly two weeks. I know that, too. I’m just not sure what that something is.

Last month was a rough one, but I finally got caught up on my work. I was glad to have done that, and ready to move on and have a better month in October. But I just haven’t been able to get much of anything done. I know I need to, but I just can’t seem to stay on task. I always have trouble paying attention, but it seems to be more than that this time. I just can’t get motivated to make myself get things done.

And of course if I’m having trouble getting my work done, I can’t really justify doing much blogging. Even if I could justify it, I really haven’t had anything in my head to blog about. And that’s why I haven’t posted an update in almost two weeks.

Maybe I’m getting depressed again, I dunno. But if that is the problem, I’m just going to have to deal with it for now. There’s no way I can afford to get on medication again. I’m thinking about trying some herbs and seeing if they help. I guess it’s worth a shot.

I hope I can get through this without getting behind again. That would probably be enough to get me to give up on freelancing, and that’s the last thing I want to do.

I’m still playing catch-up after all that went on last month. But I’m finally starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel. I’ve got one more big project to finish up, and a couple of smaller things, and then I’ll finally have it all done.

I had to take time out yesterday for Pumpkin’s birthday party. It wasn’t anything extravagant, and not many kids showed up. But everybody had a good time. Pumpkin went to spend the night with hubby’s great-aunt, but we ended up going to pick her up around 10:00 because she was homesick. Well, that’s what she said. I think it might have had something to do with wanting to play with her new toys. Just a hunch.

But now it’s back to work. Once I get all this done and don’t have to be so rushed, I won’t know what to do with myself. I’ll figure something out, though. I’m definitely going to take a day off and do something I want to do as soon as practicable. And then maybe I’ll seek out some free SEO tools and get to work optimizing my portfolio site. And after that, I’m sure I’ll think of something else.

It’s going to feel so good not to be under so much pressure. I just hope I can keep it that way.

The past week or so has just been crappy. Things have actually been going better than they were for a while, but I’ve still been all down in the dumps and not thinking clearly. Part of it’s another one of those ongoing spats Hubby and I have from time to time, and maybe adjusting to having Pumpkin at home for the summer (as much as I like it) has thrown me for a loop too. And then there’s the matter of trying to get the budget back on track.

All of this has left me struggling to write a word. I know I need to get my scheduled work done and pick up some extra stuff, but the words just aren’t coming to me. I’ve thought about trying to find some diet pills that work, getting a fake tan and pursuing a career as a model, but somehow I doubt that would work out.

I’ve gotta get out of this funk. I’m driving myself nuts here, and the bills aren’t going to pay themselves. If I can’t get back on track, I’m going to have to try to find a J.O.B. And as scarce those are (and as low-paying as they tend to be around here), I can’t bear the thoughts of that.

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’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 trouble with my install of Microsoft Word ever since I got it. It’s very buggy, and I wasn’t able to install anything but the most basic stuff. I guess that’s what happens when you buy an old version for $30. Not saying it wasn’t worth that 30 bucks, because it’s what has enabled me to do my work for a couple of years now. But it has been a royal pain at times, freezing up and being excruciatingly slow at times.

I heard about OpenOffice a while back, but never got around to trying it. But I’ve had an inordinate amount of MS Word trouble lately, so I finally decided to download it. Heck, there’s nothing to lose, because it’s free, and I’ve heard good things about it. So far I’ve just installed it and done a couple of short test documents to see how well it converts files to doc and txt format, the two formats I use the most. It passed those tests with flying colors.

If anybody out there has tried it and has any thoughts to share, I’m all ears. I’ll probably post a review once I’ve used it more.

When I first got the self-employment bug, I knew I wanted to do something online, but I wasn’t sure what. I was all over the place. I tried direct sales, but I’m just no good at that. I set up a website selling home decor and various other items, but that went nowhere. I was thinking about trying my hand at selling unique baby gifts when I finally realized that writing was what I should be doing.

I started out writing for an entertainment blog and ghostwriting web content, but I planned to eventually get into writing books. That ended up being put on hold, however, because of the downward spiral I found myself in starting when Hubby got sick. In fact, I almost completely forgot about it until last week.

I’m on Alice Seba‘s mailing list, and I got an email stating that she was giving away her Sweetie courses for the asking. I nearly fainted, but was disappointed when I realized that I had missed the deadline. Fortunately she ended up extending it, and I got my hands on a free copy of Information Product Sweetie.

I printed out the guide and read it over at the hospital last night, and it’s full of useful information. I’m hoping that once I get all my medical issues straightened out and get back on track with my regular work, I can add an ebook to my repertoire. A good passive income stream would be very nice. Thanks Alice!

She’s no longer giving out course freebies, but it can’t hurt to watch her blog, because she often gives stuff away. Maybe she’ll decide to do this again sometime!

I should really be writing right now, but I’m so frustrated. In fact, I’m beyond frustrated. I don’t think there’s a word to describe how frustrated I am right now, although a long string of four-letter ones would probably get the point across. But I’ll spare you from that.

You see, my computer didn’t come with Microsoft Word. It wasn’t really a big deal to me when I got it, because WordPerfect suited my light word processing needs just fine then. But when I started writing, I had to turn assignments in in Word format. WordPerfect can save in .doc format, but sometimes it screws up the formatting. So after a while I decided it was time to get MS Word.

Back then I had a little money to spare, but I was trying to get by as cheaply as possible. So I searched online for the best deal I could find on MS Word. Everything was in the hundreds of dollars, and I thought that surely I could get by cheaper than that. I finally found an OEM copy of Word 2000 for around $30, so I jumped on it.

The CD-ROM came in the mail a few days later, and I set about installing it. Or I tried to. I kept getting errors, and after several hours of frustration for me and strange noises from my CD-ROM drive, I gave up. I called customer service, and they said they would ship me another one out right away. They did, and it arrived a few days afterward.

I popped that one in the drive, only to hear similar sounds. Not good. But I wrestled with it, hoping I could just get it on my computer and get on with my life. I finally managed to install the most basic requirements of the program and get it to work. That was a task in itself, but it made me happy.

My MS Word has always been a little buggy, but I managed to get my work done without incident for the most part. But then last week, it just ceased to work like it should. I could no longer open a file from the menu, and composing and editing began using way too much memory and processing power. When it became virtually impossible to do anything with it, I began looking for alternatives.

I tried WordPerfect again, and it keeps screwing up my formatting even if I start over from scratch. I’ve also tried Zoho (an online word processing program that saves in .doc format), but it’s driving me nuts too. I’m considering trying Google Docs, and seeing how much I despise the big G lately, that should tell you just how desperate I am.

I would love to buy Word 2007 and be done with it, but that’s simply not possible right now. If I had known what a pain this was going to be, I would have invested in a newer version in the first place. I guess I’ll know next time, huh?