I think it’s our best yet. Take a look! Maybe you’ll find the abominable snowman, or figure out what to do with the tiniest doll in the matryoshka

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Well, okay, not always. Sometimes I can’t wait to be done. Today was one of those times. I’ve been slaving away on this stuff for nearly three months, and the closer I got to the end, the longer it took me to finish every page, every label, every block of copy. It’s as if someone came up behind me in a marathon and tied my shoelaces together.

But I finsihed, on time. Now all that’s left are niggly little revisions and updates, I hope. A little back-and-forth, and then I’m off for two weeks. When I get back, I’m sure panic will set in, the way panic always does, and I’ll be convinced that my last job was really my LAST JOB, and that I’ll have to go work at Tim Hortons just to pay the mortgage.

Looking back on the last few months, a couple of things are pretty clear to me. I need lots of variety, which means I need projects that aren’t super-gigantic. And I need some fun to break up the monotony. So perhaps when I get back, my first goal should be to find fun assignments and minimize the dry ones.

Yeah. I know what you’re thinking. As if.

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I don’t really mind so much. I mean, I mind that I can’t clean up the yard, or that I was SO CLOSE to putting away the winter clodhoppers, or that I can’t really go running in Edworthy Park (I’m a fair-weather outdoor runner, thanks, no thirty-below excursions for me). But overall I don’t mind. These are the types of days that make me love working from home.

Mike doesn’t have class today, so right now he’s hanging out in the bedroom with Ron and Len, dipping into some required academic reading. On days like today, I often think about how different our lives are now than they were a few years ago, when we bought this house, or how different our lives are from most people’s out there. Most couples don’t see each other all day Tuesday, most can’t toss a dish of chicken in the oven to cook while they work away in the office, or take the dogs for a walk at noon or even three o’clock. I’m sure one day, when Mike goes back to work full-time, we’ll have a routine more like other people. But maybe not – he’ll be around for summers, and I’ll hopefully still work from my little desk here, though much more normal hours.

It’s days like this when I think it’s all worth it. All the stress of the last year, and our hopes for the next two, twelve, or twenty. It’s nice to think about what the future holds, even if it doesn’t hold quite what we expect (past experience tells me that’s the one thing I can count on!). I know that we’ll eventually get there.

As long as we don’t kill each other first.

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I also have a ton of work to do. Boo. Hiss.

it’s kind of my own fault, really. I’m a panicker. I know there’s work coming, somewhere off on the horizon. There always is, you know? But January, someone pointed out to me, is one of those months where freelancers feel like they’re never going to work again, like all their clients have gotten through the Christmas holidays and woken up with Writer Amnesia. We can picture them sitting there, saying “Gosh, I know I used to call that blond chick for my newsletter stuff, but I can’t remember who she is. Maybe I’ll just try someone new.” So because that fear is tucked away at the back of my mind, and people actually DO call me for work in january, I start to say ‘yes’ to everything. It’s like that episode of The Flintstones, when the aliens cloned Fred and Barney, and all the Fred clone could say was “Yes, yes, yes!”. Except I need the Barney clone, who could only ever say “No, no, no!”

Aside: I know, you’re like “WTF is she talking about? The Flintstones?” It’s one of the hazards of lunchtime television. For years and years, all they ever showed on CTV Saskatoon at lunch was The Flintstones, and as a result I can tell you exactly which episode I’m watching after around 30 seconds of viewing. It’s a gift, really. I thought I’d lose it when I started to watch One Life to Live instead, but the powers that be have seen to it that my gift remains intact.

So anyway. I say yes and yes and of course, and absolutely, all the while knowing that someone, somewhere is putting the final touches on a requirements document and a schedule and I just KNOW one day it’s going to appear in an e-mail.Except I can’t wait, because December was slow (December is almost always slow) and I really enjoyed that slowness. I got right into it, buying Christmas presents and baking and helping Mike finish up his papers. But now that it’s January, the balance on my bank account puts fear into my eyes, so I start to say ‘yes’. Even worse? I really want some of the jobs, because I like the people.

Except now everyone has come through with their promises of work. All at once. And as always, there are surprises. It’s kind of funny, though. I think I’m getting slightly better at handling it. I mean, I worked late last night, but I didn’t promise to deliver anything new. And part of the reason I worked late was because (shhh) I left a little early to go to the gym, and took a longer lunch.

But I’m still tired. I could still do better. I guess this entrepreneurial crap takes practice. Someone told me it takes two years, but it’s been three and I still kind of suck at the “saying no” part. And yet? I wouldn’t trade it for any other job. No way, Jose.

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Miscellaneous Item #1

Today has been a marathon. I got up at six, managed the commute across the hall by 6:15, and have been going ever since. I stopped work at 2 o’clock, but know there’s a giant pile waiting for me on Monday, a deadline on Wednesday, and a couple of people breathing down my neck. I don’t like neck-breathers. I also don’t understand why a communications person can work for a company and not know how to spell said company’s name. Is it an intercap, or two distinct words? I care about this, because if I get it wrong they will apply the principles of Seagull Management, and shit all over me.

Miscellaneous Item #2

I took off at 2 o’clock to go to Costco with my mum. I don’t really like Costco, but I do like going places with my mum, and that doesn’t happen very often anymore. I don’t mind driving across town and picking her up, and apparently she doesn’t mind me sponging off her Costco membership.
Costco has the giantest, cheapest bags of frozen vegetables anywhere. I bought 3 kg of peas for $7.00. Why would anyone want that many peas? Peas are good for your liver, my friends. Especially if you’re a small brown dog who needs all the liver she can get. I somehow came out of there will all kinds of stuff I never intended on buying. I stopped just short of the Beefarino.

Miscellaneous Item #3

The Conroy/Iginla double-whammy is apparently working. They just scored two goals. The crowd goes wild, and Len starts to freak out. She hates the sound of hockey on the television. HATES IT. She has spent many a Stanley Cup Playoff trying to climb on to my chair and sit in my lap. She shivers. She whines. If you let her outside, she will not come back in. Clearly Conroy has no idea the amount of stress his presence is going to cause one small dog.

And clearly he doesn’t care, because they just scored again.

Miscellaneous Item #4

I’m enjoying this season of 24 much more than I ever wanted to admit. Last season, I spent a lot of time mocking it. I mean, a lot. The dialogue is terrible – especially those scenes with Jean Smart. But now I’m getting into the cliches. And seriously, casting Shaun Majumder as a terrorist was a stroke of brilliance. I fully expected his picture to pop up in the CTU databanks and Chloe to look at Buchanan and say “We’ve got a hit. His name is Raj Binder.”

Also? Jack interrogating his brother Graham (or whatever his weaselly little name is) was priceless. I can just imagne them at, say, ten and eight, and Graham has put a scratch on Jack’s new bike. So Jack gets out the pliers….

I am kind of disappointed that I haven’t heard him say “I’ll be there in ten minutes” OR “Put me on speaker phone” yet. I’m also disappointed that they didn’t stunt-cast Donald Sutherland as Jack’s dad.

Miscellaneous Item #5

I joined the Professional Writers Association of Canada today, so I”ll be unable to compete in the Writing Olympics as I’d hoped.

They seem like a good organization. I’ve had dismal luck with writing organizations in the past, and even with in-person writing groups. But the meeting I attended last week seemed full of really interesting, professional people (okay, I AM friends with two of them) who joined because they want a real dialogue with other people in the profession, and to advance their careers. This is a new thing for me. I’m looking forward to it.

I’m not down with their acronym, though. PWAC. Say it out loud. That’s right. Pee-whack. There was many a joke about us being a bunch of pee-whackers.

And that, my friends, is enough miscellany for one day.

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