faith that things will get better

Life has been a little better for me lately, even though we have been experiencing a great deal of stress because of our living situation. We didn’t like the apartment we are living in from the first day we moved in, but we had to sign a lease from Arizona. We just didn’t know what we were getting into before we saw it. Not only is it not a place we enjoy living in (putting it mildly), it is starting to cause a significant drain on our finances.

We have secured for ourselves a new place to live that is $200 cheaper per month!! The new place also has awesome neighbors, while our current place definitely does not. The problem? Our lease at this current apartment is not up until July 25th, and we cannot bear to live here that long. Not to mention that the cheaper place cannot be held that long for us.

So we have been advertising our place for sub-leasers, and we are praying hard that things will work out. If you are a praying person, any prayer you offered on our behalf would be much appreciated! I am not exaggerating when I say that our mental health will drastically improve the day we get out of this place. For our sanity, we have to leave.  

And I have been working very hard on securing new and better writing jobs. My goal is to double my income by the end of the month. I know, it’s lofty and I may be setting myself up for failure, but the truth is that I’ve been more productive this week than ever before. And even if my income doesn’t double, I can at least be sure that I did everything in my power toward making that happen. And if not this month, then soon!

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bad mood day

Yesterday was a good day. I got a lot of work done, and I felt confident that freelance writing is still the career for me. Today I just feel tired. I woke up thinking that it was Saturday and was pretty bummed that it’s not.

It doesn’t help that I have to write four REALLY boring articles today, that I’m getting frustrated about some church stuff, and that I was offered a part-time job that pays a ridiculously low sum (but I’m considering taking anyway…I just don’t know!)

I’m tired of being poor. I’m tired of feeling like I’m working hard and getting nowhere. I’m just in a bad mood today, so I guess you should feel lucky you don’t have to interact with me anytime soon. 😦

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change is the theme of 2008

I’m back from my Christmas vacation, and am ready for an interesting 2008. Things will be changing this year both professionally and personally, and I’m trying to be ready for it all. A friend of mine always chooses a theme for each year, and I think ‘change’ is a great theme.

In January, physical fitness is the priority. John and I plan to get serious about our health. We’ll be walking four mornings each week. I’m excited – I actually really enjoy walking/jogging. My problem is motivating myself to get out and do it. This time, it’s just going to be the first thing I do when I get up.

I’m also going to focus on growing and improving my business, which is scary and exciting at the same time. This will involve creating my own website, finding new clients and revenue sources, and keeping my work hours limited to during the day (not working until midnight).

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday and that you are as ready as I am for this new year.

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November recap

I have not been the best blogger the past few months. This writing for a living thing sure drains me. By the end of the day, I’m usually mentally exhausted! Which means I never feel like updating my blog. Today, though, I’d much rather write here than write the article I need to write about parrots. Bleh!

So I guess what I’ll do is a quick recap of November:

First, the not happy.

• I had a client tell me she didn’t like one of the articles I sent her. I know, freelance writers must develop a thick skin, but I don’t have one yet! In fact, I think my skin started out much thinner than most people’s, anyway (ask John!). So I’ve been a little down the past few days.

• I didn’t make as much money in November as I had hoped. Don’t count your freelance writing gigs before they’re hatched.

• We still haven’t decorated our house for the holidays. 😦

• I don’t want you to judge me for this, so be kind: I haven’t felt like doing dishes in over a week. So I haven’t. And nobody else has either. We are down to our last utensil.

The happy stuff!

• John and I basically get a three week vacation – one week together in Athens (dubbed Holli-Johnny week), one week in Arizona, and one week in Nevada, with a little Utah possibly thrown in. Yay! We definitely need the break.

• I’m making new friends. There are so many nice people in our church ward, and I finally feel like I’m getting to know some of them. It’s nice. I’m going to a friend’s house tomorrow for some crafting fun.

• I reconnected with old friends during Thanksgiving. John and I went to Rome, GA to see a couple of my college friends and their family. We played the James Bond game (I’m so opposed to it, but there I was, shooting the bad guys until my fingers hurt!) and had fun with the kids and cats. And we ate yummy food.

• I’m going to revamp my business model for the new year. I’m going to have a website and do things a little differently. I’ll show the site to you when it’s done. I know I can make the freelance thing work, but I’ll have to do it differently from the way I do it now.

• I have a wonderful husband who is so amazong and sweet. That’s not specific to the month of November, but I needed the happy stuff to outweigh the not so happy stuff!

Anyway, happy December! I hope your month is a good one.

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one thing at a time

I am just not good at multi-tasking. One of my best friends always made fun of me because I told her I could only do one thing per day. I’ve upped that number to about three, but still. I am easily overwhelmed. I read a blog post written by another friend detailing the many things she accomplished in one day, and it made me tired!

Anyway, the point is, I’ve been neglecting some things because of my inability to multi-task. I’ve neglected to call a friend that I’ve been meaning to call every single day for the past two weeks. (I’m sure you know who you are – I still love you.)

I also haven’t secured the health insurance that I’ve needed to take care of for the past two months. I haven’t updated this blog enough, and I’ve also slowed down on posting to my other blog, Evolving Blueprint. I also haven’t cleaned my house in too long or cooked a meal lately.

I’m starting to get that feeling I sometimes get, and I know it’s time to overhaul my life and get organized. Especially because my freelance writing gigs have started to pick up (which is awesome!) and I have multiple projects going on at the same time. And my church service assignment was changed from secretary to counselor, which means a much bigger time commitment on my part.

So, here’s to me finding a way to organize myself so that my house stays clean, healthy meals are made each day, and I have time for work, church, husband, and friends. Sounds way too good to be true, but I’m going to try!

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freelance writer

I’ve been dying to share this news all week but have been too busy to post. (Me, busy?! Doing what?)

Well, I’ll tell you. I landed my first freelance writing gig last Friday. Yes, you read right. I am a freelance writer! I get paid to write. I have a job. I get to work from home. I was beyond excited when I got the job. And then I jumped right in and started on Monday. What I’m doing right now is creating web content for school websites in Arizona. And the pay isn’t bad, not to mention that I am building my portfolio.

I’m working to find more clients, though, because I have officially decided to pursue a freelance writing career and make it a profitable business for me. (So if you know of anyone looking for a freelance writer, let me know.) I’ve been working on this for the past couple of months, trying to make it a realistic thing. I think it can be. Our finances aren’t awesome right now because I don’t have a full-time salary, but John has been more than wonderful in his support and encouragement. (He’s the best!)

I’m not at all sure about the legal and ‘business’ aspects of this, like whether I need to register my business, how the taxes thing is going to work, how to get myself some health insurance – you know, just the important stuff! But I’m trying to educate myself as I go along.

I’ll try not to bore you too much with this new freelance writing thing (I’m still so excited to be able to call myself a freelance writer), but writing has always been my passion. And now it’s my job, too.
……………………….
My other blog: Evolving Blueprint

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trying to keep faith

Finding a job is so…what’s the word? Tedious? Boring? Frustrating? Yes, all of those things. I get up every morning and search all the usual job sites, and maybe apply to one or two jobs (none of which are ideal so far). And then I wait. And I do the same thing tomorrow. Mixed in with that, of course is a healthy dose of the Discovery Channel, HGTV, and the Disney Channel (don’t mock me!).

Right now it’s not so bad, because John hasn’t started school yet. So I get to spend a lot of time with him, which means I’m not so lonely. But once he starts school…I’m going to have to get out and spend time with other people, and get back to work on my writing and crafting endeavors. (Those were put on hold because of the move.)

What I need is to keep my optimism and faith that a wonderful job will come along. It’s got to…

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sporadic posting

My posts are probably going to be pretty sporadic for the next little while. John and I are crazy busy packing for the move, trying to see all the friends and family we can before we go, and taking care of all the little things that go along with a move across the country.

And then there’s work. I thought I’d just coast for the last couple of weeks, but apparently they are going to squeeze every last bit of productivity out of me that they can. This week I started training the entire university to use the new PeopleSoft system for hiring faculty. Which means me standing in front of 40 people, instructing them for two hours on how to use the system. Two years ago, I know I wouldn’t have been able to accomplish such a thing. Now, I feel competent. I can speak up in a meeting. I can instruct people. I can create a new system for hiring faculty that is used by the entire university. I haven’t always loved my job, but I’m thankful for the things it taught me in the past year.

But I’m very stressed out by all the things I need to finish at work before I go. In fact, I haven’t been sleeping well lately because of it. This morning I woke up before 5am, and my mind was racing so much I couldn’t get back to sleep. I’ve got to get my stress under control before I have a meltdown. I think it’s time to start delegating my work to other people.

Anyway, my posts will be sparse for the next couple of weeks as we prepare to move. And then they’ll disappear for a week while we drive across the country to Athens, Georgia. But never fear. After that, I’ll be back online!

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where everybody knows your name

I just finished up a really rough day at work. Fifty things were thrown at me at once, which isn’t unusual, but this time they were 50 things that were stressful or came from the big boss herself (so I had to get right on them). Mostly I ran around in circles, working hard all day and getting little done.

I don’t like those days. Thank goodness we are taking the day off on Friday. We get to spend some time in John‘s hometown — good old St. Johns, Arizona (St. Johns: Everybody knows at least someone who’s from there. Even if you think you don’t, you probably do).

Ok. Time to go home and vegetate for a while.

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i’m back

Sorry. I’ve been sort of MIA lately. Here are the excuses:

1. I’ve been at Disneyland (the happiest place on earth) with John and several other members of my family. We had such a great time, but I was exhausted by the time we got back on Monday! It’s taken me all week just to recover.

2. I’m searching for a job, and I have 8 weeks to find one. So I’ve been in hyper focus mode. I spend time job searching every single day.

3. Work has been so busy. My boss leaves on vacation today, and I have been racing against the clock to finish projects before he left.

But those are all just excuses. I’m back again, ready to post again, because I have a LOT to say! So much going on. My husband broke the news a while ago on his blog, but I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned the fact that John and I are moving to Georgia at the end of July. I have so many emotions surrounding the move that it’s probably best saved for its own post. But needless to say, we are very busy cleaning, packing, finding a place to live, and job searching. And trying to see family and friends as often as we can before we live very, very far away from them.

Anyway, more thoughts later. Happy weekend all!

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thanks for the advice

Thanks to everyone who replied to my request for back pain advice! I ended up going to my primary doctor, and she referred me to a back specialist, and also to physical therapy. So I think I’ll be set.

Meanwhile, sueing the university seems more and more appealing the longer this stupid pain lasts. They are paying my doctor bills, sure. But I want them to compensate me for the pain I’m feeling, my inability to exercise, my limited ability to clean my house, for the things I’ve had to miss out on because of this, and for the emotional pain.

I’m serious. The past 11 days have been seriously unfun. I have to sit down and get up using my arms. I really didn’t know how good I had it, health-wise, until this accident. I mean, a bad back makes everything painful and more difficult.

But I’ll stop complaining now and instead feel thankful for all the blessings I have. And I have quite a few!

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and the moral of the story is…

I’m going to attempt to explain the crazy circumstances that ended with me at home all day today instead of at work.

Yesterday at about 4pm, I was walking back to my office from a work meeting across campus. The wind was so bad that I had to close my eyes to prevent dirt and debris from getting in them. By chance, a co-worker and a student worker drove by in our office’s golf cart.

“Can we give you a ride back to the office?” Of course you can! So, with cell phone in hand, a purse and some papers in the other hand, and a laptop bag slung over my shoulder, I hopped on the back of the golf cart, facing backward. I didn’t have a free hand to hold onto the sides. Can you see where this is going?

Anyway, we got to our parking lot, stopped, and then the cart took off again. My body, unfortunately, did not take off as quickly as the cart did. I could feel myself sliding off, and I also knew that there was nothing I could do about it. So I flew through the air and landed pretty hard on my back. I said a bad word. But do you blame me? What would you do if you had just flown off a golf cart, landed on your back which now hurt like the dickens, and felt extremely embarrassed at the thought of anyone seeing what had just happened?

And people did see. They all ran over and crowded around me to see if I was okay. And I was, sort of. My back hurt bad enough that I didn’t want to get up. But when a woman suggested calling the paramedics, I said no — I mean, I fell off a GOLF CART for crying out loud! How badly could I be hurt? But she suggested that we call anyway, just to be safe. And that is what she did.

Two minutes later, I heard sirens in the distance. I was mortified. “Please tell me that those sirens aren’t for me.” But they were. A fire truck drove up to the parking lot. An ambulance was there. Five firemen came over to me, quickly checking my head and back for injuries. They offered to drive in the ambulance to the hospital. I said no way would that be necessary. Again, it was a golf cart accident.

I got home and assessed the damage. My back hurt pretty badly. My cell phone sustained some nasty road rash. Thanks, cell phone, for taking one for the team. That would have been my hand otherwise. My back hurt, but otherwise I felt okay. But then I tried to sleep last night and I couldn’t. The pain in my back radiated down my leg, and the pain in my leg made it impossible to sleep. So I stayed up reading until I was so tired I knew I would fall asleep no matter how much pain I was in. Which I did.

But that decided it. I stayed home from work today, calling HR to get worker’s comp information and made an appointment to see my doctor. Most of my day was spend reading and watching movies as I iced my back and tried to get comfortable.

The highlight was getting the back x-rays. If someone had told me that x-rays involves getting mostly naked and lounging in a hospital gown for 20 minutes in a waiting room full of old guys, I might have thought twice about getting said x-rays. Or I would at the very least have chosen my undergarments a little more carefully this morning. Ha!

But the bottom line is: I fell off a golf cart. And you can feel free to laugh about that. Because that is what I am doing right now, though I am cursing the golf cart in the same breath.

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