Sigh of the Times

So my friend says, "Blog already!" Well, not those words precisely but close enough. It's not that I have nothing to say. It's that I have no time to say it. My job has been INSANE lately but we have those times. Times of still waters and times when it's all hands on deck, every man and woman doing everything that needs to be done. For at least two solid weeks I could think of nothing but all the stuff I had to do at work and I'd go home wishing I could do some more from home but knowing I needed to chill.

What I NEED is a laptop, much like the one Mr. T. once bought and promptly sold to the first person who asked him if he'd be willing. The freedom of the laptop is that when I get home tired, I just want to sit and let the TV watch me while I maybe work on something for the project we're doing for my business or maybe while I edit some columns to go on the website at my job. What I don't want to do is go all the way back downstairs to sit on my stool and work my way through my email and catch up on a few things. I'd be willing to do that in my bed right before I fell asleep though. So I need a laptop. Again.

But the issue here was time and time is money, right? I have no time, so what does that mean? Yep, not enough money either and I'm about sick of it. As I told said friend, we have money to survive. What we need is money to live. Cub scouts cost. Halloween costumes cost. New earrings for my newly pierced 4-year-old cost. (Yeah. I'm sorry I didn't blog about it. She hounded me and hounded me and I knew she didn't know what she was in for but I didn't want to put fear in her either so I gave in. She tried to jump out of the chair after the first one went in. It took 10 minutes to talk her into the second hole and now she is over the moon.) Anyway, she's turning 5 soon and birthday parties cost. My car REALLY needs help on all fronts. But that costs. Basically, I've been maintaining but it's time to get ahead.

So I thought, what can I do? The business can't help right now. We have 2 FANTASTIC new children's puzzles in the works and when they are done, I will share that with you all as I look for stores to take a chance on them. We do have our printer taking a chance on our holiday cards in his highly trafficked store, though, and we still have the first store we were in, so the potential exposure IS there. We just have to work them - after the artwork is finally done. It's taking longer than I hoped but I anticipate something awesome because both of these women are dynamic artists. The puzzles are election related, however, thus the time concern.

So I keep thinking, what can I do? I can't work outside the home more than I already do. I can't do anything that will require more gas to get there, you know? But I can edit and I can write and that has to be enough. But I am working on my own book and I don't write as much as I'd like for my job due to the millions of other things that need to be done, but I write for them nonetheless. So do I want a third writing job? Not really. Copy editing? A form of writing and very time consuming but doable. You know what's even more doable? Proofreading. Haven't done it since I was temping after I got out of college but I do have that weird gene one has to have to even like this kind of work. I didn't know I had it until after college but I suppose it was like having a disease and just not having the diagnosis until years later. This stuff is in my blood somehow so this is what I do.

I went looking for a proofreading company I can deal with virtually. Took no time to find one but now I had to go looking for my resume again. I updated it 3 years ago after I had been working my new job for a bit but I hadn't done it since. I had different versions for different positions so I had to find the right, well-edited one so I wouldn't have to worry about typos. Then I had to update it.

This morning I sent it off to the guy and I was honest in the cover letter because honesty works for me. Basically, I can do what he's looking for in an editor and proofreader. I can use the programs he wants the person to be able to use. There is one program I don't have or use because I never needed to but I told him if I have just cause, I will buy it and use it. No big deal.

No typos in the email and off it went. It must have taken him 5 minutes to respond. Cool. He was impressed. A far cry from the days when I first started and just needed a chance to get started. I needed a job to get experience but first you had to have experience to get a job. At last, experience is no longer an issue. He sent the preliminary test and it sits waiting for me. I glanced at it and the number of errors in it is making me jumpy but you can't do these things quickly. I intend to take all weekend.

If I make it through this part, there are THREE MORE PARTS, they say. Yikes! Am I sure I don't want to go back to SAT Prep teaching? Naw. Who has time to get re-trained and I don't want to drive all over the state anyway. I want to be with my kids as much as I can. They are so grown. Son has his friends he likes to go see and thankfully those boys' mothers adore him and welcome him when he comes. Daughter is sad thinking Son doesn't have time for her anymore. "He's MY best friend!" she cried recently. I explained that Son had made those friends in kindergarten and now that she was in kindergarten, she'd make her own friends too. "He's not moving out, you know. You'll always have each other." In the meanwhile, she comes home and tells me about all the kids she gives turns to on the schoolbus so they can sit next to her.

My children are social and I don't want to think about what their social lives are going to cost me over the years. I've got my own friends though and it costs to hang out, you know? But hang out with them is what I like to do. And my co-workers have joined that group since just about every wall that SHOULD be up, went down over the past few months. I won't even go into the stuff we've shared - with each other AND our boss! - but I am thankful to work with people I like and can relate to. Of course that's more people to do stuff with (we're going shooting next month. More later.) and that requires disposable funds.

I can't think about the economy or continue to watch my retirement going down in huge chunks like it is right now. I just trust things will work out in the end and I do thank God I have some more time ahead of me for things to rebound. In the meanwhile, I'm praying this at-home stuff works out and that somehow I'll find time for that and puzzles and my own writing and my own life.

This is my sigh of the times.