It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas tax time….

No, I haven’t lost it. Not yet, anyway. The way my taxes worked out for 2007, we got enough of a refund to cover my first two quarterly tax payments for 2008. Which means that my first get-out-the-checkbook, kiss-my-money-goodbye tax payment to Uncle Sam for this year is due on September 15th.

Lord knows I have made many, many mistakes in the business side of organizing my freelancing, over the years. Luckily most of them are even documented here in this space. Heh. So on the rare occasion when I get it right, I hope you’ll excuse me while I crow just a little bit.

And I know, it’s weird. But yes, Virginia, I’m excited about my taxes. Read the rest of this entry »

Freelancing deja vu: The feeling that you have mismanaged your multiple contracts in exactly this way, before.

Ugh.

Um, hi! Do you remember how once I wrote this pretty great post (if I do say so myself) about how at a certain point, one really has to sit down and be realistic about how much work you can reasonably handle? Remember that? And remember how I was becoming overwhelmed and was piously vowing to do better and choose wisely and not put myself into a situation where I was burning myself out simply because I lacked the foresight to make a sensible decision, already?

Yeah. That was a really good idea. Read the rest of this entry »

Do you know the Shel Silverstein poem that starts out “‘I cannot go to school today,’ / said little Peggy Ann McKay?” Peggy Ann McKay lives at my house—my daughter can do a dying swan impersonation like nobody’s business. If she comes to me and says that she’s too sick to go to school, she needs to produce a fever or some very unpleasant bodily fluids to get the okay from me. This is simply a fact of (my) life.

My son, on the other hand, has always been a stoic. “I’m fine!” he’s been known to protest, right before he vomits up his toenails. “I’m just a little tired!” he once told me, with a fever of 105. So when he came into my room early yesterday morning and told me he had a stomach ache and thought he should probably stay home from school, I agreed without a second thought. Read the rest of this entry »

The price of gas is finally starting to fall a little bit, and I was delighted to see it until I realized, the other day, that I was excited to see gas priced at $3.80/gallon. And that’s just sad.

Regardless, I’m not driving to and from an office every day, so I figure I don’t get to complain.

Not that I’d have a hard time finding things to complain about, mind you. It’s something of a gift. I’ve always been something of a whining prodigy, you know. My parents are so proud.

Anyway, I can’t really complain about the high cost of gas, but I can complain about the assumption that I am always just right here in the house all day long. Right? Right. Read the rest of this entry »

New shoes, man. I love me some new shoes on some small feet. I love how they’re all crisp and bright and how they smell like a new car. I love how they make the wearer walk a little more slowly, how they make them a little more careful (at least for the first five minutes).

I love how they signify the beginning of the school year.

Yep, the kids headed off to school this morning, and I think I speak for everyone in my family when I say we couldn’t be happier to be getting back to our regular groove. Read the rest of this entry »

This is the kind of post I probably shouldn’t be writing, ever, but I’m doing it anyway because otherwise I have to sit here and wait and the song doesn’t lie, folks. Waiting is the hardest part.

I’m waiting for an update from my husband, who left the house at about 4:00 this morning to get to the airport and catch the first flight up to Boston to be with his family. I’m waiting to hear that he’s made it to the hospital, that he’s seen his mother, that he’s able to tend to his family as he is prone to do in such situations, that they are managing to cope.

I should be there, but I’m here. Read the rest of this entry »

Perhaps the thing I love the most about working from home—other than the staying-in-my-jammies thing, because that’s obviously the best part—is that it enables me to cook stuff I might not otherwise be able to prepare during the week. Really! I’ve always tried to make cooking healthy meals for my family a priority, but as any busy working mom knows, that can be really tough when you’re out of the house eight or ten hours a day.

I’m still busy, but now if I want to make a multi-step dish, I’m much more likely to take it on, even during the week. I can do some food prep first thing in the morning, while the coffee’s brewing. Then I can do a little more at lunchtime—flip marinating meat or chop up the next few ingredients or whatever. I have to tell you, no longer doing all of my cooking on the weekend (which, granted, was useful and all, but which sucked up a huge portion of those precious days off) is fantastic. Read the rest of this entry »

I am not exactly an optimistic person by design. I can see that you are shocked by this revelation. Try to contain yourself. I wouldn’t say I’m a pessimist, exactly, just that I tend to be… guarded. Cautious.

On the other hand, occasionally I do surprise myself with moments or even entire days of relative Zen. Things often have a way of working out. Something that happens while I’m kicking and screaming, but that’s just what keeps life interesting, I guess.

What I’d like to portray, most days, is a balanced view of what it means to be a freelancer. Sometimes that’s hard to do, though. Read the rest of this entry »

Hi. My name is Mir. And I… I… I’m a sleepaholic.

(Now you say… “Hi, Mir!”)

My story isn’t any different from anyone else’s, really. Despite society’s insistence that the average American adult should be able to function on five to six hours of sleep each night, the older I got, the more clear it became that I truly require close to eight or nine hours to feel “normal.” I knew it was wrong, I suppose, and yet… the sheets on my bed were just so cool, so comfortable. I gave in to their siren song, again and again. And when my schedule doesn’t allow for sleeping in (most of the time) I resort to napping.

I’m so ashamed. But I hear admitting my addiction is the first step in recovery. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been away on vacation (thought working a bit while we were gone), and the break really did me good. I needed to relax and take my mind off of work for a few days.

While I was away, a piece I did for Redbook went live both in the just-released August issue and online, and so over the last few days I’ve once again experienced an influx of readers who are reaching out to me to ask for guidance on how they, too, can make a living blogging. Fortunately, my last experience with this has more or less prepared me to handle it, but I’m always a little surprised by it, nonetheless. For the most part, though, people who approach me are well-meaning and kind and sincere, and I don’t mind taking some time out of my day to talk with those sorts of folks if I can share some useful information.

No, that’s not my problem. My problem is that even when I get email from morons, I can’t resist responding. Read the rest of this entry »