this woman’s work

I’m gloomy because of McCain not caring if women die and rolling his eyes at Obama for apparently not knowing his place. I’m going to list Happy Thoughts, dammit, especially because my across the street neighbor didn’t wave when I drove by (she glanced at my van then looked away — usually she smiles and waves) and I noticed she was wearing a 2nd Amendment t-shirt so maybe she hates my Obama sign. (sigh) Plus a kid in Noah’s Hebrew class told him that Obama was anti-semitic. How depressing is THAT???

Enough!! On to the list!!!!

1. Noah and his friends were breakdancing in front of the rec center after homeschool gym class. Then Noah tried to do a freeze and couldn’t do it so he said, “Oh snap!” Also he kept saying, “Oh no he didn’t!” every time McCain would roll his eyes during the debate last night. That made me laugh.
2. Madison is cleaning her room. I tricked her into it by casually saying, “Hey, I totally don’t want you to clean your room AT ALL but could you pick up all the clothes on the floor and just put them on the bed so I can put them away later?” Then I said, “That’s great! I wonder if you could happen to perhaps fit those books on the floor back into the bookshelf?” Now she’s cleaning off her desk. Heh. Kids are gullible!
3. Today is Thursday. That means potluck. That means restful conversation and friends. All hail Thursdays!
4. It’s cool and gray out and looks like fall. It’s lovely. Plus I got to officially break out all of my sweaters and since I’m sick of my summer clothes, this is happy, too.
5. We have mini-chocolate chips in the house. That means COOKIES! As soon as Madison is done in her room we’re going to whip up a batch for potluck.
6. My kids are gorgeous. I don’t mean to brag but they are. And funny and smart and generally nice people.
7. My husband is nice to me even when I’m nasty to him. I’ve been a terrible grouch this week and visiting way too much of it on him. Thank god he’s patient. I would have kicked me to the curb by now. (I’d send myself to my room if the kids wouldn’t follow me.)
8. The house is trashed but … but … (I’m trying to wring some happiness out of this but am coming up blank. Wait! I have it!) The house is trashed because I’ve had a lot of work. I won’t mind the mess when the checks start showing up and meanwhile I have some time this afternoon to make a dent in it.

OK, I feel better now. Mostly.

And no one died, burst into tears (ok Madison did once but it’s because she saw a spider) or fell down the stairs. Yes, we survived the day without Brett. It wasn’t easy — I had to make my own coffee and the children had to suffer through my Mac & Cheese, which isn’t as good as Daddy’s — but we did it.

The kids and I cleaned 3/4 of the basement, which made a pretty big difference. I also moved the bright light downstairs, leaving the living room in near darkness. But it’s worth it to know my children aren’t squinting at their toys.

Madison is a lousy cleaner having no attention span and being easily distracted by every toy we unearthed. Noah spoiled me with his focused, attentive cleaning by age four, I guess. I finally quit nagging her and just set her up out of our way since she kept tipping over piles of stuff we’d just sorted. Now she’s very happily playing with, I think, her duplos. (”No,” she says. “PLAYMOBIL!” Sorry. Missed that.)

I’m grouching about a couple of late checks — both large-ish, one spectacularly late and one the same late it is every month. I dearly wish every client would pay in a timely manner instead of making me send repeated reminders. It’s part of freelancing that I really, really don’t like but there it is. I don’t know a freelancer in the world who doesn’t contend with it.

Because Brett is job hunting. That’s why I’ve been so grouchy.

On the one hand, it’s a good thing. We need to build our cushion back up after this last year of entrepreneurship broke it down; we need more savings. And more money is always a happy event because we wouldn’t mind actually finishing that bathroom we started renovating. See? That’s all good. But we’ve been struggling to see the good in it because we, of course, wanted to be rich and famous by now or at least be living off our business by now.

I still believe that we can make this work (this being our business) and be a work-at-home family just not quite yet. And we did have one great year (mostly) and I very nearly made my financial goals (I mean, I’m only a thousand bucks short for the year so far) but it’s been enough “almost” months that it’s had too big of an impact on our savings. (Not helped by our trip to Portland and the check that got “lost in the mail” for nearly two months.)

See, if you’re going to be a full-time freelance, you gotta have room for those inevitable expenses and we did but now we don’t and so! Brett to work.

It’s going to be hard on him (because he loves being at home with the kids) and on Noah & Madison (because they love having dad home with them) and on me (because I love having built-in childcare) but it’s not going to be as hard as it would have been a year ago. I mean, we have the business in place, we’ve gotten over the worst of our learning curve, we understand what it takes time and money wise, and I’ll be able to get childcare when I need it.

Anyhow, that’s the news I’ve been reluctant to share seeing as how I was hoping for a miracle. (Hey, it could still happen!) But barring said miracle, if you know anyone who’s hiring and would like to add a handsome, talented, organized, friendly man with way too much experience in insurance benefits and customer service, hit me up. Because I’ve got just the guy for you!

It’s not my carpal tunnel stuff — it’s my wrenched neck stuff. I need to go upstairs and stretch but the boys (Noah has a friend over) are playing hideous video games and the noise might drive me insane. So instead I’m downloading neo soul music and trying to be mellow.

For the first time in two weeks I got my inbox below 50 (it’s currently at 21). My rule is to keep my gmail inbox to one page at all times. At least that’s the goal and some days I’m more succesful at it than others. This summer I’ve made it my mission to unsubscribe from 1 point 6 zillion lists and newsletters that I somehow subscribed to and am sick of deleting.

I’ve been feeling low-grade anxious/fidgety all week and today my coping mechanisms didn’t seem to be working all that well. I think I need a hobby. I mean, besides downloading music. And no, I’m not going to take up knitting. God forbid I should do anything requiring small motor skills especially with this carpal tunnel thing. Plus I hate small, poky, fussy things that require me to pay attention to details. Ugh. No. Although I admire you small motor people, I have no desire to join you.

I don’t know why it is but complaining on my blog has cheered me up some. My hands are still numb but at least I’m less grouchy about it.

I’m tired on behalf of my friends who are getting slapped when they’re up and kicked when they’re down. I’m tired of the world not being fair.

Good lord, people! Be nice to each other!

(Note: I believe all readers of this blog are generally nice people. I hope that all the other people you deal with — virtual and otherwise — will be nice, too.)

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