For years I’ve written here about the intricacies of balancing life and mothering and work, and agonized over the time I spend building my business vs. nurturing my marriage and/or being a wholly present mother to my children. For years I’ve talked about how you get out of your business what you put into it, and how “just cruising along” might work in a corporate job, but in freelancing it means stagnation and less work.

I’m a big believer in life handing you the lessons you need to learn. And it would appear that I needed a lesson in work being less important than my family.

Lucky (?) me!

As I finally wrote about this morning, my daughter has been very ill for the last couple of weeks. She’s finally home from the hospital, but we’re not done with this yet, and won’t be for quite some time. She’ll be home, we’ll have lots of doctors’ appointments to get her to, she needs a lot more care than she would if healthy, and things simply have to change.

The good news is that I already work from home, and I’m grateful that I have the flexibility that allows me to adjust my schedule accordingly. If I was working for someone else, at this point, I’d be looking at taking FMLA leave (and completely losing all income while doing so).

The not-so-good news is that as I’ve dropped work and worked less on my own sites, yes, absolutely my income has taken a hit. And as anyone who’s ever had a family crisis knows, not only do you have additional expenses from the illness itself, but daily hospital treks aren’t exactly conducive to frugal meal planning and home-cooked meals. Income is down, expenses are up.

But.

Money is a solvable problem. There’s always ways to make more money, or catch up later. While I’ve been busy taking care of my family, I’ve also realized that my priorities could perhaps use a bit of tweaking. Letting work take a backseat for a while doesn’t mean the end of the world, or even the end of my business. It’s a temporary thing. I’m lucky I’m in a position to both back off of work and to get things back up to speed later, once we’re through this rough patch.

I can’t quite believe this happened just to force me to reexamine my schedule and my family’s needs, of course, but it has turned into a valuable lesson about what’s important. Work is good, and building a business is satisfying, but if everything has to stop so I can make sure my family’s okay, well then, that’s what I’ll do.

And we’ll survive it.

Not completely, of course. I have clients, I have contractual work to deliver. I continued writing where I had to. I continued writing about the things that matter less to me; stuff that has nothing to do with how I’m feeling or what I’m thinking.

For almost eight years I’ve maintained a personal blog, and it’s been my refuge to work out my talky impulses when it comes to sorting through things. That blog has seen me through the majority of my kids’ lives (and trials and tribulations therein), several romantic relationships (and lack thereof), remarriage, relocation, everything. Everything. Before that, I journaled. For most of my life. Writing about my life has been central to my existence for a long time.

And last week I looked at the “New Post” screen and just couldn’t do it.

I ended up writing a (rather vague and lame, I’m afraid) quick post to say I’d be taking a break, and then I walked away.

For eight years I’ve not had a problem balancing between sharing my life and maintaining boundaries where necessary. Not that I’ve been perfect at it, of course, but it’s something I’ve felt comfortable navigating. And I’ve always felt like I “needed” to write. It helps me work through things. It’s part of who I am, or at least who I’ve always thought I am.

I’m not saying I won’t go back to personal blogging, once the hurdle currently in front of me is cleared. Logically, intellectually, I think I probably will.

But for the first time in a really, really long time, the impulse to write is just… gone. It’s not that I want to write and can’t, or feel like I shouldn’t. It’s that I don’t want to. At all.

That’s… weird. A little scary. I imagine discovering that part of your body is paralyzed is similarly alarming. Like, “But I used to be able to use this arm just fine. Now it’s useless. How did that happen?” (It occurs to me that this metaphor is probably hugely offensive to, say, someone who’s actually experiencing paralysis. My apologies. It’s the closest thing I could think of to describe how it feels, and no, I do not think the loss of my impulse to write is truly as awful as a paralyzed limb.)

The stuff I continue to write feels flat, to me. (Hello, inept metaphor! Just for example.) I’m on autopilot. I’m waiting to feel like my old self, again.

But I would be lying if I said that a small part of me isn’t wondering if this is permanent… and what that would mean if it is.

Translation: I am not succinct, but I appreciate it when others are. Heh.

Anyway, in the spirit of the whole new-year-self-improvement kind of thing, I figured that as January is winding down, now, I’d direct you to a few master list-makers who’ve piqued my interest lately. If you’re looking for the best bang-for-your-buck mileage out of some blogging advice, check out these lists from people smarter—and more succinct—than I:

Start with this list of 24 (of the) Best Business Blogging Guides, Tips and Tools of 2011 from Business 2 Community. Yep, it’s a list of lists, but I guarantee you’ll find something there that resonates. From advice on blog commenting to best SEO practices to general blogging tips, it’s all there. Bookmark that one, because I guarantee you’ll want to go back to it in the weeks and months to come.

Missing from that list are two recent pieces from Problogger that I think are worthy of a mention.

First, I really loved reading Uttoran Sen’s 31 Unexpected Perks of Blogging You’ll Never Want to Give Up, particularly because many of the items on the list aren’t the “rah rah be a pro!” kinds of things you typically see when people are talking about blogging as a business. I think that’s precisely why I think it’s a good business read—once you’re doing this for a living, you can forget about why you started blogging in the first place, which (for most of us, anyway) is because it’s fun. This one is a great reminder of some of the intangible benefits.

Second, if you need a little levity, don’t miss Karol K’s 13 Steps to Being the Worst Blogger on the Planet. I particularly like number 14 (nope, not a typo). Just a little geeky blogging giggle to lighten your day, of course, but there’s some valid points embedded in the humor.

At the end of the day, there’s no “magic list” that’s going to clarify everything, of course, but I do love these sorts of pieces that impart such good information in bite-sized bits.

Do you have some other favorite tips lists bookmarked you can share with me?

(This comes as a huge shock to you, I know.)

Anyone who has ever formed any sort of working relationship with me knows that I have no problem discussing business in a business or mentoring context. But now I’m wondering if “honesty” and “transparency”—qualities I think are necessary for success in this line of work—should extend to one’s financials.

I didn’t just wake up one day thinking about salaries, of course. This started rather unexpectedly because of an interaction I witnessed (where else?) online.

When I first started Want Not, frugal blogs were few and far between. Sure, there were “coupon boards” out there, but bloggers hadn’t yet run with the idea, so much. Then the economy crashed and now my little money-saving blog is a small fish in a gigantic pond of people trying to live more frugally and make some money through sharing that. That’s fine with me; I believe the ‘net is big enough for all of us, friendly competition is generally a good thing, and in many ways having so many colleagues in this particular niche has only made me learn more and become better at what I do. All good!

Recently I was added to a closed group of deal bloggers for the purposes of discussing matters relevant to our sites. I rarely check in there, actually, because as someone with several thousand unread messages in my inbox, I don’t have the time. But after I heard a couple of friends discussing something there, curiosity got the better of me and I had to go look.

Someone commented that “if you’re making tons of cash on your site, it might be time to remove the piece on the front page that says you blog because you’re having financial difficulty.” The debate that followed this statement was amazing to me.

Most participants in the discussion were in total agreement with the original poster. But several pointed out that it’s not for anyone else to judge what constitutes financial hardship, and that finger-pointing and “hating” saddens them, etc.

I had to take a few minutes to figure out why this was bothering me. Truly, I agree with the original poster. It feels disingenuous to me for someone to be saying that their blog is there because they’re poor, when they clearly… aren’t. But I also agree that it’s probably not anyone’s business, not really, and what purpose is served by discussing this? (Apparently most of the folks in the discussion knew who was being referenced, though I did not. Again, see: several thousand unread emails.)

For me, the crux of what bugs me about this is not that anyone’s entitled to know anything else about someone else’s financial status, but that allegedly (again, I don’t know) it appears a blogger is sort of portraying themselves as something they’re not. To me the problem here isn’t actually about money, it’s about honesty and integrity.

So no, it’s not that we’re entitled to know what someone makes. But certainly for those of us blogging about money, it erodes credibility if we’re not honest about our own financial situation. And that doesn’t mean sharing tax returns on our sites, or anything, it just means not claiming to be poor if you’re not. And for me, personally, I’m part of this community of frugal bloggers, and while what anyone else is doing isn’t really my business, I prefer that there not be a prominent blogger misrepresenting themselves in a way that casts all of us into a suspicious light.

On the other hand, I think I just keep on doing what I do, conducting myself in a way I find appropriate, and don’t really worry about it. But… does this sort of thing send more folks my way who feel entitled to ask probing and inappropriate questions about what I earn? Yeah. And that’s a bummer.

When I am not busy proclaiming my undying (yet completely businesslike and platonic, I assure you) love for my accountant, I’m probably saying this: Worth every penny. Because he is.

Everyone who freelances has a Starting Out period where every penny is precious. How long that time lasts varies, of course, and I went through it, too, so I totally get that there’s this start-up time when you’re not even making enough money to cover your expenses, not really, and hiring an accountant seems Completely Out Of The Question. That’s fine. What I do say, though, is that as soon as you can afford it, hire an accountant.

When can you afford it? That’s up to you. I would say that if you’ve reached the point of incorporating—or maybe even just thinking about it—it’s time. And yet, there’s always someone who will argue with me that they’re perfectly capable of handling their taxes and other paperwork themselves. My standard answer is that I’m sure they are, but I think they should hire an accountant anyway.

The exception to this rule is people who are already accountants. Though I’m guessing maybe even sometimes accountants hire other accountants.

I mean, I don’t know about you, but I’m intelligent and capable. I run my own business. I built it myself, from the ground up, and if I do say so myself, I must be pretty good at it to have gotten where I am now. I’m certainly capable of doing my own taxes and payroll paperwork—I could learn how and do it myself, absolutely. What I don’t buy is the argument that it would “save” me money.

Time is money. People say that all the time, but I think sometimes we don’t really think about it. “Oh, I would never hire someone to do that. Too expensive. I could just do it myself.” Well, sure. But time is money and I guarantee you that if my accountant is charging me $X for what he does, I could accomplish close to the same thing in twice the time, which means I’ve lost about $2X in billable hours because I was driving myself insane trying to do stuff I’m not good at. He’ll do it better, and faster, and it offers some legal protections I wouldn’t otherwise have. Worth every penny.

But today’s reason to love my accountant is quite simple: The State of Georgia recently decided to convert all of their tax-related billing and payments to an online system. I guess they’ve had this system for a while, but it was optional; now it’s mandatory. It’s the only way to pay your state taxes, if you live here. There are many, many thing I love about living in Georgia, but this particular interface isn’t one of them, if you get my drift. Ahem. Somewhere in the third quarter of last year I got my account converted and made my payment and did my filing with them online, and it wasn’t exactly a transformative experience, but it worked.

About a month later, the state of Georgia started sending me nastygrams to let me know that my Q3 payment had been late, and to insist that I now owed them a couple hundred dollars in late fees. Even though their own online system logged my payment as being on time. Hey, I have an accountant—I forwarded the information to him, and he’s been dealing with them on my behalf, though it’s not quite resolved yet.

This week I went to see my accountant to do my Q4 payroll, and now the state’s online system says that in addition to my last payment being late, I never paid my Q4 taxes… in 2009. Except I did pay them, of course. This was before the online system, but given that the online system can’t seem to determine when I made my online payments, either, this seems to be a moot point.

Again: Accountant to the rescue. Although I have a filing cabinet at home of all my various tax paperwork, he also has copies of everything I’ve ever submitted with his assistance. He’s also dealt with this office a lot more often than I have. And left to my own devices, I’d be curled up in the corner, rocking, and whispering, “The tax man is coming to get me.” But no, my accountant told me exactly what I need to produce to prove I made the payment, and he’s not even worried about it.

Basically, a good accountant is made of magic (and reassurance). Get one.

I’m glad we went, but I was elated to arrive back home. Two weeks is a long time for me to be off my regular routine. I missed my bed and my house and even my desk, I found.

Of course, after arriving home at practically midnight on Sunday, Monday was a day to unpack, ask the children if they ever planned to get out of their pajamas (their answer: “No, of course not!”), and try to get the house set to rights again. Today—Tuesday—the kids were back to school and I was ready to get back into my normal routine. Today would be an incredibly productive day!

I don’t have to tell you the punchline, do I?

Listen, the good news is that it really was a pretty productive day. I got an awful lot done, in the grand scheme of things. Just… not a lot of work. And you can tell, because this very post is late, because of all the other things I was doing today.

The day started out promisingly enough: The kids were up on time, I got lunches packed and everyone out the door. I refrained from dancing a victory jig while they left, even.

For the first couple of hours, I thought I was on track to my most productive day in weeks. I alternated work here at my desk with loads of laundry (multitasking!) and catching up on several work-related phone calls. I even found time to step away from the desk and do a quick workout (nothing makes you feel like getting on the elliptical more than two weeks of nothing but eating).

Unfortunately, by lunchtime it was clear that my day was going to be cut short. While we were away, we stayed with relatives who were kind enough to gift the family with strep throat. My daughter’s been on antibiotics for several days already, but still isn’t feeling quite right, and so I’d called the pediatrician to see if they could get us in. They could, but earlier in the day than I’d planned. Oh well—I’d take care of a few errands, run my kid to the ped, and get back home in time to finish up some work. First I made a few phone calls to arrange after-school logistics for my son, then headed out.

A “quick trip” to the wireless store to get a new SIM card for a phone turned into an hour-long adventure, and the packages I tried to drop at my local UPS Store turned out to need to go across town to a different location. Splendid. Fine; I’d finish that later. I retrieved my daughter from school, got her to the ped, and was delighted to get both a new prescription and a sports release form she needed in one fell swoop.

The kid was delivered back to school, and I went to pick up her meds. As long as I was at the grocery store, it occurred to me that I had just enough time to buy some food for our empty post-vacation fridge before I’d need to head back to the school to pick up the kid for home. I raced through the store, spent enough money that the checkout clerk said, “Oh, you did a big shop!” and I laughed because this was supposed to be a “quick trip.”

Once the child and the groceries were brought back home, I got everything put away, started making dinner, and remembered that I’d promised my son I’d bake treats for his class tomorrow. (Why yes, I did forget exactly one needed ingredient for the promised cinnamon rolls while I was at the store buying everything else in the world. How did you know?)

By the time dinner was eaten and cleaned up, my husband offered to run to the store (the saint), I had some time to actually talk to my children (imagine) and start baking, and then I remembered that I had one more piece of work I had to finish before I could declare myself off the clock for the day.

And that was this. Today’s moral: Some days just kind of blow up and you don’t get much done, even though you’ve been busy all day. The good news is that freelancing means you can kind of make it up later. The bad news is that you’re forever making it up later.

The best news is that tomorrow morning there’s going to be cinnamon rolls.

Boo hoo, I know. Poor me and my pie-balancing act. Heh.

The week between Christmas and New Year’s is traditionally one in which people reflect and make resolutions to be better, stronger, thinner, and smarter in the new year. For me, being in business for myself means that this is when I reflect on all of the things I probably should’ve gotten done earlier in the year. Ahem.

I also think of my accountant, and start rooting around in my purse for receipts. (I am nothing if not supremely organized.)

So, yes, there is also planning for the year ahead, but first I have to finish up this year.

So here’s what I’ll be doing this week:

Invoicing clients. I’m pretty good about invoicing my clients, but in December I make sure I get those invoices out by the end of the month for sure, because I’m also…

… balancing the business account. This means I’m scanning and recording all receipts that have mysteriously made their way to the bottom of my purse. And making any final business purchases I’ve been putting off but need/want to take care of this year. I go over my invoices one more time to make sure that payments due have been received, and send out reminders if they have not. This is also when I move money around, if necessary, because I’ll have a big tax payment due in January and I want to make sure I’m ready to do an instant payment from my business bank account when I go to see my accountant.

Considering business expenses for the new year. It’s not set in stone, of course, but if I’m going to need a new computer or am planning on business travel in the new year, I like to have some idea of these larger expenses before that first accountant visit. It helps us plan where money needs to go when.

Making final charitable donations. This is a good idea for anyone, in just about any job, of course. Get those tax-deductible donations in before the year ends!

Doing a Q1 projection for the next year; adjusting as necessary. I’ll confess that planning ahead isn’t always my strong suit, but when I’m focusing on wrapping up the year I do take the time to see what I have lined up for the next few months. If work is looking thin, I start working on how I’m going to bring in some new contracts; if I’ve got plenty on my plate, I may work on a new or revamped schedule to make sure I can get everything done.

Buying myself something shiny. I started doing this the first year I actually made a living as a freelancer, years ago: I buy myself a present at the end of the year. It’s never anything huge or super-expensive, but I’m frugal by nature and unlikely to buy myself something I don’t need. So when I’m kind of wrapping up the year and going over my income, I find it an exercise in mindfulness (really!) to buy myself a little gift. Just because I can (and because there have been so many years in my past when I couldn’t). I like a little something to remind me that I worked really hard, I did good, and it’s okay to enjoy it.

What will you be doing this week?

This is part of living a semi-public life (which any writer who ever talks about anything personal is doing, intentionally or not). There are people out there that view any willingness to share personal stories as any or all of the following:
A) Your entire life laid transparent, a complete story with no missing pieces,
B) Permission to judge you,
C) An invitation to relive personal baggage, related to you or not,
D) An opportunity to unload vitriol.

Lots of people have great ideas on how to deal with this when it happens.

The commonly accepted non-confrontational method is to simply ignore this person, because everyone knows that you can’t reason with the unreasonable. Anyone who lives a life where they feel compelled to hop on a personal blog and start telling the writer what a terrible person they are is by definition someone whose life is unfulfilled. Happy people don’t go pick fights with strangers. So I quite like the advice to ignore, because that seems most prudent to me.

If things get really obnoxious, you can of course ignore and delete the comments. If it doesn’t stop, you can ban the commenter in question.

Others feel that ignoring someone in this situation just gives them more power or somehow silently sanctions their poor behavior. Those folks advocate letting their commenters loose on the poorly behaved, and/or letting the person know exactly how you feel about their feedback. Again, I try not to talk to crazy people, so I’m unlikely to respond, but I’ll confess it does rather tickle me to see my commenters take someone rude to task on my behalf.

Several bloggers I know feel that if someone simply cannot control themselves in the comments, the blog owner is well within her rights to creatively edit said feedback. While this approach amuses me (one of my favorite people, Leigh of Miss Doxie, noted that when editing nasty comments, grumpy people end up complimenting her on how good she probably smells), it’s not really my style.

So what should you do when it happens to you (because if you write online, it will happen to you, if it hasn’t already)? I have no idea. I think you do whatever makes you feel better, so long as it doesn’t involve stooping to the same level. What you do is something you‘ll have to figure out.

I will, however, go out on a limb here and suggest what you should probably think while figuring out what to do. And that is this: Someone who leaves nasty comments semi-anonymously on the writing of someone they don’t know is someone who is not happy. Happy people don’t need to be right all the time, and happy people don’t need to put other people down. It sounds sort of elementary-school-wisdom-y, because it is. It’s simple. Happy people don’t intentionally make other people unhappy. They just don’t. Call ‘em whatever they want, people who come to you for the express purpose of being jerks are just plain malcontent.

And that’s kind of sad.

As you may guess, I recently had a commenter lay into me, and I was ill-prepared, I confess, because that hasn’t happened to me in a very long time. I immediately felt upset and defensive, but then I remembered that happy people don’t do what she did.

So then I took a minute to remind myself that 1) what she said isn’t true, 2) she doesn’t know me or my family, and 3) because I am happy, and she is not, I should probably just feel sorry for her. When I’m feeling especially forgiving, I pray for her and people like her; it must be hard to be that angry.

‘Tis the season to love and be loved. Don’t waste time worrying about how to characterize or productively address folks who don’t get that. Just do what you do, and if you’re lucky enough to be happy, wish for peace for people who aren’t.

And as much time as I spend trying to figure out how to take time off, get away from my desk for an entire day (imagine!), the deeper issue is that day-to-day balance so that life feels like something to be experienced rather than an endless slog. (Okay, that’s a bit of hyperbole, but still.)

It’s not about figuring out a vacation, necessarily, but about making every work day more doable, more manageable. I mean, vacations are nice and all, but until I hit the lottery (which is difficult, I’m told, if you never actually buy a ticket), I still have to work for a living… so I’d rather figure out how to make most of my time more enjoyable than simply endure for long stretches between the nicer bits.

So I’m going to encourage you to go read this piece by Mario R. Garcia about pausing. Really; go read it, I’ll wait.

I would love to tell you that I read through it and a lightbulb went off and I was all, “Yes! Yes! That’s exactly right and I can totally do that!” But that would be a lie.

In reality, I went through something like the five stages of grief in reaction to this piece.

1) Denial: Um, what? Yeah, sure eating two Fig Newtons is just like a mini-vacation in your day, dude. Whatever. Can I have some of whatever you’re smoking? Because if a couple of cookies was going to do it for me, I’d be in much better shape.

2) Anger: You know what? Pieces like this piss me off. The implication is that those of us who are stressed out are, like, I don’t know, less evolved or something. Like I don’t have enough to feel inadequate about.

3) Bargaining: I might be willing to try this little mini-break thing, but if it doesn’t magically solve my workday stress level I’m just going to assume that this piece was an elaborate hoax. Or that the author is crazy. Or possibly both.

4) Depression: I am a miserable human being who cannot even derive joy from Fig Newtons, and not just because they have wheat in them. A normal person can take 10 or 20 minutes out of their day and be rejuvenated, whereas I’ve been known to take three hours just to stop ranting about some minor inconvenience from earlier in the day. I’m pitiful.

5) Acceptance: Uh, I’m pretty sure it won’t cost me anything to try this approach. I have nothing to lose, and maybe it’ll even work.

So there we are: for one month, I am going to try this approach of a daily pause and see how it affects my mood and productivity, overall. I’ll report back.

[Related: Why yes, it is exhausting being me!]

Specifically, there’s been a lot of discussion generated by the announcement of REDBOOK’s new “Motherboard,” a panel of bloggers who will be writing for them free of charge.

There’s been so much chatter about this already, I’m not going to subject you to my own long-winded commentary on this. Plenty of people have already covered a lot of what I would say, probably with less flailing around than I would likely do. But if you haven’t been following along—or would like to make sure you see several different takes on it—let’s take a look.

Basically, the announcement was made, and on the surface it looks like a great opportunity for the bloggers involved.

First Danielle Wiley at MomCrunch responded with Five Reasons to Just Say No to Unpaid Work, which is applicable across the board, not just to this current REDBOOK thing.

Then Ciaran Blumenfeld at Momfluential wrote the perfect companion piece, Five Stupid Reasons Mom Bloggers Work For Free.

And then Gigi at Kludgy Mom responded to that with Bloggers Working For Free: Not a Black and White Issue.

Now, you may have correctly assumed that I agree with Danielle and Ciaran, but I take issue with some of Gigi’s points. In particular, she says that “… I believe the theory that every mom blogger should be paid does more to undermine the earning potential of our community. Why? Because paying everyone implies that everyone is delivering value.” Paying does imply that everyone is delivering value. If you hire someone to do something, one assumes you believe there is value in the work they do. The argument that not everyone deserves to be paid isn’t support for stiffing people, it’s further evidence that companies should want—and pay for—quality. I don’t think anyone in this scenario is suggesting that every person in the world who ever started a blog deserves a paycheck for it, I think the point is that if you’re hired by an organization which pays its employees, they shouldn’t be expecting you to work for them for free.

Whoops. I said I wasn’t going to give you my own long-winded commentary. Ahem. I’m not, really.

So, uh, after you read those posts, I’ll just direct you to some of my commentary from the past:

I exhorted bloggers to remember they deserve to be paid for their work four and a half years ago. And then I revisited the issue a month later. And one more time, about a year ago, I begged my fellow bloggers not to sell out, which was basically the third version of the same theme.

And if you weren’t reading me back there, here’s something interesting—while my fellow professional freelancers were all “high five, sister!” about all three of those posts, I was crucified on plenty of “hobby” blogs for being elitist after each one. Because wanting professional pay for professional work apparently makes me a snob.

So I’m going to leave you with two thoughts, rather than allowing myself a full-out rant.

First of all, this pay/no-pay thing is overwhelmingly a problem among women, for a lot of the reasons Ciaran talks about in her post. This is not just an issue for the writing community. This is an issue for women in general. I don’t care if you take issue with the word feminist or not, if you are okay with so many women working for free when men never would, I will happily eat my keyboard.

Second, I think I may be done talking about this issue. The justifications that get whipped out for why “it’s okay” or “you shouldn’t care what I do” or whatever when this stuff comes up just makes me sad. For you. As I tweeted during a lively discussion on this topic the other day, I know what’s right for me. I occasionally write for REDBOOK; they pay me. And that’s because they asked me to write for free and I said no, I deserve to be paid. I do and now they do. It’s not rocket science. While my life would certainly be easier if there weren’t people out there somehow letting companies believe it’s perfectly fine not to pay their writers, chances are my life is still infinitely more pleasant than that of the struggling writer who believes she doesn’t deserve renumeration.