Sit Down, This is gonna take a while

The last two weeks have proved to be interesting, stressful and unprofitable to say the least.

I’ll do my best to start at the beginning so bear with me if some of it doesn’t make sense.

Last week I finished up what I considered to be one of my first major projects in a long time. I’ve invoiced the client and heard from them over the weekend about a set of minor revisions that they want done to the project and a response from my reminder that I still had not received payment for the work. That was Saturday. What is today?

Last week was also spring break for the kids and me. While I was on spring break I tried to catch up on the school work that I am behind on (no dice), and some of my projects. The kids got a chance to get outside. I was racked with fear the lovely OH weather would stay uncooperative (much like it is today) and the kids would be cooped up indoors but they did get out on a couple of days and that made me smile (namely because the house got quiet).

I also decided to drop school…. Are you done yet? I can hear all of you now. It wasn’t a decision I wanted to come to but I looked at the rest of the schedules for my classes and I realized that even if I COULD keep up on everything, I would be creating very tight deadlines for school and writing. I hate not having flexibility (hint: why I became a WAHmom to begin with) so I am dropping both classes.

I can’t tell at this point if I will pick them back up in the fall, try for an online course or what I will do. It’s all too early to tell for me and I think that I was lofty in my belief that I would be able to juggle it all. There are too many missing pieces to make this work (and the gas to drive 40 minutes each way doesn’t help), I need to have more hands, more eyes and less noise in order for it to work and right now that doesn’t happen. A kid gets sick or I get sick and I am thrown totally off game. My van has had issues and that hasn’t helped and those issues (from the smell of things today) aren’t over.

I have also been in the works with someone helping me to get an unpaid debt from another writer settled. It’s the longest saga I have ever been a part of and it almost belongs on a blog of its own (or at least it’s own category). To say the least I went from getting payments via PayPal by the other writer to now supposed money orders by mail. I say supposed because I haven’t seen one yet. My contact in all of this sent me the email telling me that she (the other writer) sent payment on the 29th… Again, I ask. What is today? She still owes $81.

I’ve decided (and I still don’t know if its a good idea or not but I am in a leaping first and looking later mood) that if my mailbox is empty again tomorrow – I will be providing my readers with the information to discover who she is. I compromised on the original amount she owed and even did two other unpaid spec projects for her, the least she could do is finish paying me within a reasonable time frame. (For those of you not keeping track: this is April and I should have been paid last August). New comments by the other writer speak of my work not being usable and her having to rewrite them – Note: I kept a list of all my titles and original work, I copyscaped them all to be sure I wasn’t as crappy as she says and I wasn’t insane. Good to know I’m not either of those. (MUST. STOP. NOW. IRRITATION. GROWING.)

Because of the problems with my van and lovely people who don’t want to settle their writing debts, for the first month in I-don’t-know-how-long, I can’t pay my bills for the month. Not Good. Not Cool.

Various illnesses and even an accident with one of the kids at home (its ok now thanks for asking) will probably cause me to lose one of my clients. I have no idea if saving it is possible because I haven’t approached him but my contract hasn’t been renewed yet either. If any of you have an idea on how to save this relationship, I am all ears. I am all for the truth but my fear is that the truth makes me sound like one of those wham’s that blame the reasons they can’t hold up their end of the deal for the client is because of kids and I don’t want to be that person – no matter how true it is.

There is a bright side… I swear.

Regardless of whether or not I lose the client, since I won’t have the extra load of school I will be better able to stay on top of my current and future projects and I am even going to be able to sit down this week and begin work on one of two magazine queries. My goal (if things work out) is to get my daughter registered for summer camps with our area’s girl scout council. I am hoping to get Bug enrolled in the summer programs through the enrichment learning program for talented and gifted children and if I feel things are going well and I can continue to profit and catch up on the bills, then I would like to enroll Peanut in a preschool for a few hours a week this fall because he was really beginning to do well at the children’s center at the college and I hate him leaving that setting.

I probably could have put all of this into a bunch of separate posts but where is the fun in that?