Month: June 2011

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Kind of Swamped

Well, the dry spell is over. Or, rather, things are picking up. June has been an utter financial disaster and I don’t look forward to picking up the pieces in July. But July is looking up. My client is swamped which means that I’m swamped. I just worked through the weekend and expect to put in sixteen hour days for the next week.

I’m spending what little free time I have building my Squidoo business. I know what you’re all thinking. Um, kind of frivolous? Nope. I have sold ebooks and made Amazon commissions from my lenses there that make the time invested so far equivalent to earning just over minimum wage. In other words, Squidoo has been worth my time more than has the last two and a half months of job hunting in Lethbridge. Believe me, I wouldn’t on that site if it wasn’t making me money!

I’ve been wanting to get into Squidoo for a long time, but something told me to wait. I’m glad I did. I am putting more than five years of internet marketing knowledge and experience into building a solid Squidoo business and it’s already paying off. I am doing with Squidoo what I had hoped to do with this blog and am seeing results much, much faster. In a way it’s a shame that I’ve waited so long, but in another I’m hitting the ground running and seeing results right away.

I’m clocking out for the night and off to curl up with a good book and a mug of hot tea as the rain continues to drum a tattoo on my roof.

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Happy Cats

It has been raining on and off here for a month. At least we have sunny periods, unlike in BC where you just get overcast skies between the rain drops. We had a clear patch in the afternoon and even a bit of blue sky. So I opened the front door and put the ottoman at the top of the stairs. Sure enough, my cats got the message.

First Neelix:

Then Tabitha:

 

 

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Hanging Around

Jody told me not to be shy if I need anything since she and Gary are decluttering. So, when I got tired of tripping over my step ladder and found the perfect place to store it, I asked Jody if she might have some eye hooks or another option for hanging the ladder.

She came up with the perfect thing! They’re padded hooks so the ladder fits snugly in them and won’t rattle around when I drive.

I’m hanging the ladder in the library on the passenger side under the loft (and behind the arm chair). I removed the soft padding that was there and screwed the hooks into the new loft floor. I have some (lots) of touch ups of yellow to do, so I’ll add this wall to the list and make it look a bit prettier now that the padding is gone. But it’s not a huge priority since with the curtain you can’t even see the wall.

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Yay, no more tripping over a ladder that annoys me to no end until the couple of times a year that I really need it an am grateful for it. 😀

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How Being Organized Can Help the Scatterbrained

In February, when I moved to Blaine and had the coffee shop nearby, I thought it would be good to bring my travel mug with me instead of using a disposable cup. But I couldn’t find the travel mug; it wasn’t anywhere in the kitchen and I wondered if I’d left it somewhere.

For the next few months, getting a new travel mug was at the back of my mind. Just a niggle. And I couldn’t help but wonder about the fate of my travel mug, that good Thermos-brand one I bought for the Chilkoot trip. But I never thought about it at a moment when I had time to think about the last time I remembered seeing it.

Last night, being unable to sleep, I decided to raid the cupboards one last time even though I’d just recently gone through them. All I could find was the stainless steel non-travel mug with tea strainer that I had bought in Inuvik.

Waitaminute.

Inuvik.

Where I purchased the stainless steel mug with strainer because I’d bought a bunch of strong teas and didn’t like how they transferred their taste to my travel mug.

The light bulb that went on was as bright as the bat signal! I suddenly knew exactly where my travel mug was!

I grabbed a shawl and raced outside, never mind the rain and darkness. I opened up the driver’s side rear pass-through door, pulled out the water hose and  miscellaneous hook-up gear plastic drawer, grabbed the tote with the camping supplies, and voilà!

See, if I’d been disorganized, I would have had no idea where the heck I put my camping stuff after I came back from Inuvik. But because that stuff has a home, I was able to put the tote away immediately in the rush of getting back to the madness of my second Klondike summer.

I really do need to get going on my ’empty out the entire basement and inventory it’ project. 😀

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Hump Day

How the heck did it get to be late Wednesday evening?!

Today was pretty much the same as Monday and Tuesday with one exception.

I got up at 8, was in the office doing my morning admin stuff by 8:15, transcribed for an hour, took a breakfast break (10 minutes), transcribed for a while, took a water filling break (10 minutes), transcribed for a while, went to answer the door sometime in early afternoon…

Went to answer the door?

It was Donna! She was heading to a nearby town and wanted to see if I was free to join her. I couldn’t believe I had to say no! But I was swamped. 🙁 So we said hellos, I gave Midnight a cuddle, and back to transcription I went.

I took a 10 minute lunch break somewhere in the late afternoon and went back to work. I was almost done with my first pass-through when Donna called on the way back. I had two deadlines to meet today and I was racing to the finish for both. I couldn’t believe I had to turn her down again!

The transcription was done coming on seven and I jumped into my rain gear. I had one batch of fliers left to deliver by 8! I raced around both neighbourhoods and flopped back in my car at 7:55. Barely any time to spare!

By this time, my stomach and blood sugar levels were about to mutiny. I wanted to make pizza, but a chicken, cheese, and pickle sandwich on homemade bread (baked by  breadmaker while I did fliers on Tuesday), was much faster!

It was 8:30 by this time and I still had some admin stuff to do. Did that, built another Squidoo lens, and then gave myself five minutes of downtime with a hiragana word search puzzle.

Now, I’m thinking hot shower, cuddle with the catkids, and some much needed Zzzzzs.