It has now been two months since I last blogged... time passes swiftly, and work has been incredibly busy. I still find it hard to be working for my associate, as good a boss as she is, not because of anything to do with her personally, but because of the hours she wanted me to be available to her, which I would rather have done differently--I would be just as happy with a shorter lunchtime, and would rather have started earlier and thus ended earlier when I had more time to work on my own business, which has burgeoned over the last few months. I could really do with someone working for *me*, but finding the right person, even as a contractor, is not so easy. I need to call on my friend D who knows employment law and how to interview and all of that, because that was what she did when we both worked at the staffing company... and she was very good at it.
Well, that aside, a lot of other things have occurred over the past two months. The older daughter, L, came for a visit and was already planning her next vacation here in October. The next time she will arrive with her fiancee, though, whom I've only met once but who is such a nice young man that I know she has made a good choice. Yes, she became engaged during this period...a very momentous event in anyone's life. Both of them seem very happy with the arrangement, and are now starting to work on wedding plans.
V, the younger daughter, just got herself her very first apartment. She is renting it on her own, and officially took possession of it last night. Tonight I went up to see it and helped her take some boxes up.. she had said it was small, but I had no real idea how small. Her apartment is a basement apartment and no bigger than the whole of my master bedroom. Unlike my MBR which is one large room (and my MBR's not huge, one can't have a sitting area in it), this is broken up by all sorts of partitions, with all sorts of access to the building's utilities--the water main shutoff for the entire building, one of those old mansions that's been converted, is located inside her apartment. The ceilings are low, there's barely room for a bed let alone a sitting area for company, and there are various access panels to get into all the utilities.. personally I think the place should never have been approved as an apartment because of all the access panels and the fact that they are going to have to come tromping through her place if they need to turn off the water for any reason. Doesn't seem right.
Personally I feel claustrophobic in her apartment, and I feel V settled too soon on this place just to have a place back in Asheville, but I've not said so and will keep my counsel on it. There have been better places out there for the same price or just $25 more a month, but she just needed to wait until this month to get a chance at those when the college students start giving in notice. Still, this is something she will need to learn. It's only for a year, if she's really unhappy there then she can look for a better place next year. In the meantime she very excited to have her own place. It's long been a dream of hers, so now she's fulfilled it. And she won't really be alone.. she and her boyfriend are always together anyway, so between his place and hers she won't get lonely.
V will also be much closer to work and not have the long commute.. between gas savings and less wear-and-tear on her car, she's probably going to do pretty well to be back in Asheville.
While I will miss V, I won't miss her messy room (she's going to have to keep the apartment cleaned up, hah!) and messy bathroom, those will get cleaned up and finally be presentable. Her boyfriend is a lot neater--he was the one vacuuming there this evening--and I hope that good influence will rub off on her. I've always had a hard time getting her to keep things neatened up. Even as a kid, when she had candy she would drop all the wrappers behind the couch so she wouldn'y have to clean them up. No matter what I said, she's always been messy, so now she will have good reason to clean up her act.
As for me... well, things are definitely improving. Business has been really busy and I'm getting more and more inquiries. The key there seems to have been the listings in the AT&T yellow pages. And I do get lots of referrals as well... but still would have problems keeping up with making enough to get by on. From what I've been able to discover my rates are lower than many, and that is the big problem--II've not raised rates in over 4 years now, and I would say it's time.
While I find it hard to work for my associate I also appreciate the regular money coming in that pays the basic bills, so I am not complaining about the job at all. It's just that I haven't adjusted yet to working for someone else, and do miss the freedom I used to have to be able to go visit with a client during the day and get out of the house a little bit. Still working from home.. so I'm blessed in a number of ways.
Soon enough I will have the payoff from all the work... I am getting money back from the IRS this year rather than paying out, a big payment will be coming from a client once they get their refund (they've already sent off their return, so it won't be too long), I've cleaned up a number of jobs now and am working on more, so things are really looking up. And of course the "stimulus payment" will help as well. In order of priority, here's where the money's going to go:
root canal (tooth has been abscessed for 3 years, this HAS to get done)
fix car (driveable, but has to be done soon so it passes inspection in May)
pay for Tessa's operation ($1500 for this one alone)
new tires (good thing I don't need to drive much 'cause they're getting close to bald)
new storm door on back door (about to fall off, same as front storm door did--I replaced the front one in November)
new roof
pay off credit card (this is going to take a while)
Nothing there for "fun", but it's all stuff that's been piling up and I will finally be in a place to do something about it. When 1-5 are done, I will start being able to do a few things for me, maybe even take a few days vacation and go down to Myrtle Beach for a little R&R--off season of course. :-) Not much, but some sort of reward for all the work. I'm really tired of these long work days. As one of my clients once said, "I'm cutting down to half days...you know.... 12 hours is a half day." I will feel like I've really made it when I can get down to a 12 hour day.
One thing I would like to find a way to fit in as soon as I can was soemthing I tried with L when she was here--we took a lesson with a local artist on throwing pottery on a wheel. Both of us had a really good time with it, and this is the first thing that has interested me enough that I would want to do it as an "extracurricular". It would be something I could do year 'round, does not involve sitting in front of a screen, and I really do enjoy it.
I took ceramics as part of my coursework in college, so I learned a little about throwing pottery way back when and liked it, but at the time I had to take so many courses thanks to changing majors mid-stream (from math to art) that I never really had the time to explore it as I would have liked. Now I can, and maybe get a few nice pieces out of it once I've built up some skill. Going to be a while before I keep anything though--too much practice to do.
Other than that Spring is most definitely here. The cherry is in full bloom, the daffs are starting to die back and leaf buds are starting to grow on the trees. I have the window open even now at 11pm - weather.com says it's still 61 degrees out and I'm stting here in a short-sleeve t-shirt next to the window. While we can still get some cold weather--it was a high of 42 a couple of days ago--in general the weather continues to warm up and I am more and more eager to spend some time outside.
On the plus side, it's nice to have an office with a view and a window that opens. I can enjoy the fresh Spring air and listen to the birds and smell the freshness of new growth. I do love that scent. And now that I don't have to worry about how to meet the bills each month I really can appreciate just how good I have it.
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