A few days ago, this was going to be a post about what a hypocrite I am. I was—still am, really—ready to hang my head and confess what an awful thing I’d done.

I’ve written here how many times about setting rates and valuing your work? About how your time is valuable and you deserve to be paid well for it? And I do think that most freelancers who cannot make a living struggle not necessarily because their work is poor, but because they have difficulty valuing their time appropriately. It’s an issue about which I’m really passionate, quite frankly.

And yet, last week I engaged the services of another freelancer and then blanched at the cost. Not because the cost wasn’t fair, mind you, but just because I was feeling overwhelmed. And she offered to let me pay less, and so I did. And then I felt extremely crappy about it.
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I bought an elliptical machine this weekend. I did it the way any (cheap) good American does—I found it on Craigslist and then drove over and handed cash to a couple who’s made peace with the fact that they’re simply not going to use it. My husband and I have vowed to Do Better but let’s fact it, good habits are hard to form, and in this arena, we are experts at bad habits.

Hey, we work hard. We both work full time and also try to be as present as possible for the kids and make sure that the house stays relatively clean and that we have home-cooked meals to eat. We get up at 6:00 and by the time the kids are in bed at 8:30ish, all we want to do is sit on the couch for a little while before we head to bed, ourselves.

This is the area where my life is most out of balance. I’ve known it for years. Can I finally change, now?
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Although I enjoy hanging around with my family and friends, I am, by nature, a rather solitary person. Loneliness is a common freelancer’s lament—long days in the home office, all alone, can start to feel like a lifetime in a cave—but for the most part I relish the quiet.

But I got to thinking that a dog would be awesome, because I’m here all the time, and it would give me some companionship during the day and the kids would be delighted to have a pet again (we haven’t had a dog since they were very small), and it all seemed like such a good idea. So the husband and I did our research and drove out to a rescue in the country and agreed to foster a particularly timid dog for two weeks. In two weeks we would see if he would come out of his shell and maybe be a good fit for our family.

Within three hours of getting him home, he bolted through the slats in the gate. That was four days ago, and the good news is that the dog is fine; he’s lounging around our neighborhood and when he’s not somewhere we can see him, the neighbors are calling to report he’s in their yards eating their cat food. The bad news is that no human can get within 10 feet of him.
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Unless you’re a fellow career blogger—meaning you write one or more blogs for business, rather than just writing a personal blog on which you never generate any income—if I told you how many pitch emails I receive every day, you would think I’m exaggerating. But I’m not. Right now I write for eight different sites, and as a result I am pitched constantly. I would estimate that I receive about a hundred pitch emails every single day. Really.

And although most of the pitches are poorly written and even more poorly targeted, I don’t mind. This is how I sometimes find out about stuff I want to know. What I mind is poorly-written pitches, or thoughtless pitches, but the pitch itself is rarely the issue.

Recently, a kiwi changed how I think about the pitch process.
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I probably shouldn’t complain about this, because at least I sit at a desk all day. I don’t have to carry heavy things or put together buildings. I’m not wrangling preschoolers or even just standing on my feet for most of the day. I sit. If you have to have some sort of back injury, my career is probably the “best” one to have it in.

Still.

I was in a car accident four years ago where I sustained a terrible case of whiplash. And ever since then, periodically my neck decides to stop playing nice. It makes me feel old and grumpy, to have a chronic neck injury, and it makes working rather difficult, being in constant pain, and don’t even get me started on the doctor situation. Except that I’m going to tell you about it anyway, because that’s what I do. And my neck hurts and that makes it hard to think of anything else to tell you about.
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It seems like just last week that I was complaining about not paying my husband and home enough attention, so wrapped up as I’ve been in work, lately. Oh, wait—that’s because it was just last week. Huh.

Sure, I was complaining mostly about not having enough time for my husband, but really, deep down I was feeling like work was taking center stage in my attention more and more. And I was determined to restore balance. It started with the previously-discussed date night; fortunately, the sitter we hired was awesome (and I can’t wait to have her back again) and our night out was a lot of fun. I will definitely be trying to make that more a part of our routine.

But then—as so often happens—I swung right past “balanced” into nearly tipping off the other end of the scale. Moderation: I find it elusive.
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I think the number one question I’m asked in connection with this space is how I make time for my husband and myself, in the midst of running my own business and taking care of two kids. And my usual answer is, “Who, now? What? Oh, you think my husband and I have quality time? Ahahahahahahaha!”

That’s a terrible answer, by the way. I don’t recommend it.

In the grand scheme of my various life responsibilities, I think I fall down on the job most often in my role as wife. And I don’t say that because I think I should be ironing my husband’s shirts, or anything like that, but because my husband is of the longsuffering sort. The kids need me. Clients need me. My husband is patient, and just about always willing to sit back while I tend to those who need me “more,” which is both awesome and sad. I love that his tolerance is so high, but I hate that it has to be. He deserves just as much (more?) of me as everything else.

Tonight we’re stepping out, and I couldn’t be happier.
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I get a lot of pitches via email, as a blogger. I get some pitches to me for my personal blog, some for this blog, some for my shopping blog, and even some for various other blogs for which I’m contracted to write. On very (un)lucky days I get the same pitch three or four times, to different emails, about different blogs. I’m inundated and I ignore most of it. It’s the working blogger’s equivalent of junk mail.

Lately I’ve started getting a lot of people magnanimously offering to allow me the honor of paying them to advertise my sites—either on their sites, in some magazine, etc. These I’m even more likely to turn down; why, exactly, would I pay to advertise writing that’s getting plenty of word-of-mouth coverage, already? I’m entirely too cheap for that.

But one day, circumstances converged and I decided to do a little experiment.
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My husband is bugging me for a vacation.

More specifically: He wants to take a couple of days to go away when the kids are off visiting their dad, and this is a perfectly reasonable request. Some might even say it sounds fun. (It does. Sound fun, I mean.)

But at the same time, I cannot get over feeling like I can’t possibly go away! There’s too much work to do! It costs too much! The sky is falling!

Okay, possibly that last one was a small exaggeration. I am just going to sit under this umbrella, to be sure, but still. (Do you feel sorry for my husband, yet?)
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I have an appointment with my accountant today to ready my 2008 tax return.

I have a folder full of stuff and printouts of my Quicken logs and thanks to my plan for increased organization in 2008 I’m totally and completely ready with no surprises whatsoever!

Ahahahahahahaha! I’m funny. Okay; I’m in much better shape than I was last year, that part is true. But my hopes for a completely painless readying for taxes were dashed when I started gathering up my 1099s. And I was so close, too.

I think it’ll all be fine. But I can’t escape the feeling that perhaps I’m just not meant to have organization in my life when it comes to my money. Excuse me while I just bang my head on the desk a couple of times….
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