It’s part of my commitment to write more and blog less. Oh and to quit neglecting my kids so much. (Madison is able to free herself of her restraints now. Kidding! She can’t free herself! Kidding! We have no restraints! Call off CPS!)

I spent my babysitting time this morning trying to drum up work in the ever-pressing need to make our budget. That’s my big challenge for this winter: How do I make our budget without going insane? I have to goose myself into action and the effort knocks me out. Making our budget has nothing to do with writing even if I’m writing to do it.

I grew up in the shadow of this man because my dad worked his way up from insurance salesman (cold calling businesses) to a regional manager. I spent a lot of time at conventions where grown men would leap from their chairs, pump their fists and scream, “I feel healthy! I feel happy! I feel terrific!” We three kids would hide under the tablecloths in the back waiting for our dad to come off the stage and then we’d scour the room for left-over lifesavers after the men left. (They always had trinkets or candy on the tables at these things to keep the men all sugar-rushed and excited.)

This is probably why I married Brett — I find ambitious men suspect.

I told my dad that he needs to dig his old signs out for me. The two I most remember (he would bring them home in boxes and we would color on the backs of them) are these:

  • Direct your thoughts. Control your emotions. Ordain your destiny.
  • Do it now!

I also find optimism suspect. My father (when I was in seventh grade) hollered at me, “You’re pessimistic, over-opinionated and too dogmatic!” I went to school and looked up “dogmatic” in the dictionary and said, “Yup.”

Actually I’m not all that pessimistic but people with relentless good cheer remind me of salesmen and I don’t trust salesmen; I’ve met too many of them. This goes for cheerful freelancers, too. I always think they must be deranged. They make me feel like Janie Gibbs grinning evilly at her jocular mother. In the presence of cheerful freelancers I feel both tragically inept and sneakily superior. (It’s a character flaw I’m unwilling to give up just yet. Dr. Phil says, “How’s that workin’ for ya?” I hate Dr. Phil, too.)

I’ve been meaning to write an essay about this and I had a great title for it but now I forget. I hope I wrote it down somewhere and manage to find it eventually.

And now I’m going to go play with my children!

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