Happy Independence Day to my fellow Americans! Hopefully, you’re off work and ready for some fun, today. But even if your day contains little more than a busy schedule of barbecuing and eating half a watermelon, there’s always time for a few blogs with your morning coffee….

Got the Twitter’s-down-again Blues? Check out the Fake Twitter Status Blog for a giggle.

Most brilliant idea ever, and I’m mad I didn’t think of it first.

Reading this post made me want to go on vacation with her.

Kids say the darndest things.

This one is only for those who like their politics with tongue firmly in cheek.

Happy 4th, everyone!

And I’ve never been particularly patriotic, but I’m here to tell you that I have never been so excited about the July 4th holiday as I am this year.

I wouldn’t necessarily say I’m burning out, exactly. Let’s just say I’m feeling a little singed around the edges.

I’m tired. I’m cranky. I’m doing too much and I’m not doing any of it particularly well. On the surface, it’s business as usual. I take my work seriously, and it would take a lot more than a little bit of stress to cause me to miss a deadline. Nevertheless… I’m short-tempered and it’s taking me twice as long to do half as much. I’m not going to win any Mother of the Year awards right now, either. When I’m working I’m wishing I was with the kids, and when I’m with the kids I’m thinking about all of the work I should be doing. I feel overwhelmed, but not for any one specific reason.

Singed.

Fortunately—help is on the way, in the form of a much-needed holiday weekend. We’re heading out of town for a day as a family, and then after my kids head off with their dad, a couple of dear friends are coming here to spend a couple of days.

I will not work.

I will not fret.

I will sleep in and laugh a lot and maybe have a glass of sangria or two.

I will shake off whatever’s going on with me this week.

I hope.

The stakes are higher, when life balance goes awry, when you are your business. If I could’ve taken a sick day (mental health day?) this week, that might’ve helped. But it isn’t an option, as a freelancer. Heck, it’s not an option even when I’m genuinely ill. It’s an unthinkable extravagance, an unscheduled day off. So I sucked it up. But “suck” is the operative word in that sentence.

And yet… tomorrow is a holiday. And then the weekend. Sometimes, life hands us what we need.

Here’s to our country’s independence, and to me finding a much-needed attitude adjustment.

Everyone is all hyped up about the ways in which your workstation can actually drive you to distraction with all of the decidedly non-work activities it offers. It’s social media gone amok, and everyone’s work is suffering because of it, right?

Hey, dude, not me. I keep forgetting I even have Twitter. I check email more than I should, I suppose, but I haven’t found it to be a detriment most days. For me, the true distraction in working from home doesn’t reside in my computer (though, trust me, I’m plenty able to get lost in something trivial online, occasionally), but here in my house.

Here is but a small sampling of the things I absolutely never did when I should’ve been working, when I still worked in an office outside of the home:

Made pesto. Yeah. Um. I never had an office before now where my herb garden was just twenty feet away. And it only takes a few minutes and there’s just so much basil so maybe I could just whip some up and freeze it for later during a lull.

Got into an argument with my tween about whether or not two minutes constitutes viable piano practice. Her case: Moooooooooom, I played my song twice! My case: You could be lazier, but I’m not sure how, and so let me play right into your hand here and slip into lecturing you when you should be practicing and I should be writing. Oops.

Scrubbed toilets. Look, sometimes when I dash into the bathroom after a large cup of tea I am reminded that small boys and aim don’t always go hand in hand. It’ll only take a minute, anyway, and I can’t stand to just leave it all gross in there.

Organized my desk. While it’s true that I probably did this periodically even back in cubicle-land, it is not true that when I had an office elsewhere that I would often find it littered with my children’s books, toys, and scraps of paper. The mess in here is only partly mine, and that means I succumb to the “this is my desk, not your holding tank” lecture entirely too often.

Cleaned out the refrigerator. There’s a hole in the bucket, you know. Because i just thought I’d take something out to defrost for dinner. And as long as I’m doing that, maybe I’ll just whip up a marinade. That needs some garlic, so into the crisper drawer I go, and how long has this been in here?? Next thing I know, “taking out something for dinner later” has turned into a major excavation of the fridge.

Gotten into a to-do discussion with my husband. My husband is a professor, which means that he’s off work for the summer. He’s doing a lot of work around the house, and invariably as I watch him putter around I feel guilty (you know, because I’m sitting here doing nothing… wait…) and start painting trim or telling him how I’ll get over to the hardware store for such-and-such if he needs me to. These discussions usually end with him cocking an eyebrow at me and saying, “Don’t you have some writing to do?” Oh, yeah. That.

Played with my iPhone. Yes, if I’m sitting at the computer it makes no sense that I’m fooling around with my phone… unless you consider making “White and Nerdy” by Weird Al your ringtone a matter of utmost importance. Hey, I have priorities.

All of the above? Well, that was pretty much yesterday. No problem, I told myself, each and every time I got up from my desk. I’m a freelancer! I can get work done whenever! Yeah, well, it didn’t feel quite so carefree when I was still working at midnight last night.

No need to tell me what a moron I am. I’m aware. Believe me.

For once, I’m actually fairly well caught up on work. I have a cup of coffee sitting here, and the kids are behaving. Today is an excellent day. And excellent days need some excellent new blogs to surf!

I’ve probably linked Mom-101 before, but now that she’s the Etiquette Bitch I can’t resist doing it again. (Keep on with your bad, polite self, sistah!)

Crash Test Mommy has unwittingly written a post that vegans the world over will use to further their cause.

Do you consider yourself neurotic? No, really, these people are neurotic.

I like words, but they really like words.

Don’t wallow after a break-up; please confine your misery to 17 syllables.

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You’ve already bookmarked the Daily Deal, I’m sure of it, but just in case you need a reminder, this is it. Go. Check it out. (Bonus deals on Fridays, because you’re pretty.)

Have a great weekend, everyone!

I thought I’d seen all the lists—mistakes women make in business, mistakes male bosses make, mistakes freelancers make, mistakes male freelancing bosses overseeing women of a certain height during months that end in “ber” make. (Okay, I may have made up that last one.) The point is, society loves a list, particularly when it comes to a step-by-step accounting of how to do something right or how everyone is doing it wrong.

But now there’s this: Courtesy of FreelanceSwitch (which you should have bookmarked and should be reading religiously, fellow freelancers; do I have to tell you everything?), we now have The Five Most Common Mistakes of Female Freelancers and The Five Most Common Mistakes of Male Freelancers.

I was prepared to be offended. I was ready with my moral outrage, truly. But then I saw that women actually got off a bit easy, here.

To wit: Here’s their list for women:
1. Being afraid of self-promotion.
2. Not separating work life and home life.
3. Getting bullied into a lower rate.
4. Not re-investing in you and your business.
5. Being intimidated.

But here’s their list for men:
1. Your desk is not your home
2. Freelancing is no excuse for poor hygiene
3. Counter-Strike is not a billable activity
4. Don’t let ego destroy good work
… and the fifth item is a link back to the piece about women, cautioning men to heed those rules as well.

So, technically, women are cautioned about five things, while men are cautioned about nine. Plus, women come off looking timid, while men come off looking like smelly slackers.

All in all, it feels like a good time to be a woman, no?

Personally, what I find interesting here is that the thing other women most often say to me, when we talk about freelancing, is that they could never [insert assertive activity here], and I’m always surprised. I self-market. I negotiate. I go after work. I’m not a shrinking violet, and so those sorts of activities have never been difficult for me. Now that I’ve read these lists, I think I’ve finally discovered why.

I might actually be a man. (Crap. Um, don’t tell my husband….)

Of the nine postulated mistakes, the one I’m most likely to commit is the one that’s first on the male list. Limit myself to a maximum of 8 hours a day at my desk? That happens… ummm… yeah, I think I’ll need to plead the 5th on this one, actually. And while I’m fessing up, I’ll tell you that the directive to “shower before you work” is one I rarely heed, as well. I often do half a day’s work before I shower. (Though this one, I’d argue, is a matter of style rather than right or wrong.)

My biggest hurdle is balance—which is both number 1 on the male list and 2 on the female list, semantics aside—and I’m not sure that’s unusual. Most people and nearly all freelancers I know suffer from issues in balancing work and the rest of life. Is that a gender issue, really?

I’m also going to go out on a limb here and say that I suspect that people (female or not) who have difficulty being assertive—arguably 3 or perhaps even 4 of the “mistakes” on the female list—have very short freelancing careers. If you’re not prepared to pimp yourself, you’re a poor fit for self-employment.

But what do I know? I’m (apparently) just a guy trapped in a woman’s body.

And so I’m sure it comes as no surprise when I tell you that any regular client of mine who offers direct deposit is a client I adore. Direct deposit? As in, I work, and you put the money right into my bank account? I couldn’t sign up quickly enough. I always did direct deposit when I worked in an office, and I was thrilled to discover that in some instances, I could still do so, as a freelancer.

Now, it’s true that I felt this way even before gas reached $20/gallon. Murphy’s Law is alive and well in my mailbox, which is to say that even before I was loathe to drive anywhere because every trip cuts into my children’s college accounts, receiving a check and taking it to the bank for deposit meant one thing: That another check would arrive the next day. Conversely, receiving a check and waiting to deposit it assures me of receiving absolutely nothing else for weeks on end.

Don’t ask me why this is so, just accept that it is. I swear.

And so it has come to pass that going to the bank has become the bane of my existence. It’s a necessary evil, but it is one of my least-favorite tasks.

Well. See that picture up top, there? The little machine? That’s a check scanner. A remote check scanner. I went to my bank’s online portal the other day and it proudly proclaimed that business owners can stop in to pick up one of these handy-dandy machines, and then use it to submit checks for deposit electronically. As I read this, two thoughts occurred to me, simultaneously (or nearly so):
* I need to get one of those!
and
* I wonder if they consider me a business owner.

I am a business owner, of course—I have a business account with them, even. So I can think of no reason why they wouldn’t let me have one of their fancy check scanners. On the other hand, I can’t believe I might be able to never go to the bank again. The thought makes me giddy.

And yet… I haven’t gone to the bank, just yet, to find out if I can have one. And I’m really not sure if it’s because I hate going to the bank or because I fear they’ll laugh at me and tell me it’s for real business owners. I mean, it’s the former. Probably.

And also possibly because I don’t have a clear space on my desk to put a check scanner, just now….

I’ve had a few days all to myself while my family is elsewhere, and inbetween working and painting my dining room (the neverending home renovations continue!) I’ve found some great new blogs. Pull up some time to kill and dig in:

My standard line has always been that I married young because I couldn’t stand dating. Reasons why I dumped you reminds me of how much I hated dating, but with more giggling.

When I read this update at Hollow Squirrel I knew I needed to read her regularly—clearly her life is a lot more interesting than mine.

Have you noticed something different about the “modern” Strawberry Shortcake? If so, you should probably read this.

Have you met Olga, the Traveling Bra? (A site like that takes… well, dedication.)

And this last one is especially for those of you working outside the home: The Office Humor Blog.

(Psssst! Don’t forget to check the Daily Deal for your bargain fix!)

“If only I had nothing else needing my attention, I could get this done so much more quickly!” In fact, I often joke that I could probably churn out a novel in addition to my regular workload if only the rest of my life would just back off for a little while.

Well, my kids are away with their dad. My husband is away on a trip. And I am all alone in my home office, and it is reeeeeeeeeeally quiet here. It’s so peaceful.

And a little creepy.

And in the interest of full disclosure, I’ll admit it: I’m not sure I’m any more productive with everyone gone than when the normal hustle and bustle of life is happening all around me.

Okay, maybe that’s not really fair. See, yesterday was my first day with the house all to myself. Rather, it should have been. But instead of a calm, full day to work, I had contractors in and out of the house all day. (That’s a story in and of itself, but the facial twitch I developed yesterday just now calmed down, so let’s not get into that.) So I had a mountain of work to do, but there was crashing and banging and people asking me things, like whether or not I wanted my door to have a handle (??).

Needless to say, productivity wasn’t exactly at an all-time high yesterday.

But by the time everyone else got out of the house, I didn’t need to cook dinner for the family. I didn’t need to chase anyone into the shower or do anything for anyone else. Sure, I still had a lot of work to do, but I didn’t have anything else to do.

I fixed a simple dinner for myself and ate it in front of the television. Afterwards, I did some more work. The evening passed quickly and I got a great night’s sleep, sprawled out in the middle of the bed.

Today, I’m enjoying the silence. I’m reading blogs. I’m catching up on email. I’m working, but not particularly quickly. I’ll get my work done, sure. Eventually.

I wouldn’t want to be alone here all the time, that’s for sure. But it sure is a nice change of pace for a few days!

Some people use the Internet simply to check e-mail and look up phone numbers. Others are online all day, downloading big video and music files.

For years, both kinds of Web surfers have paid the same price for access. But now three of the country’s largest Internet service providers are threatening to clamp down on their most active subscribers by placing monthly limits on their online activity.

Time Warner is conducting a trial of the new fee structure in a Texas town right now. Comcast and AT&T are talking about following suit. And I am terrified.

If you read the whole article, you’ll see that the new structure is aimed mostly at folks who are doing a lot of streaming video and music downloading; these are the users who are “clogging up” normal Internet access speeds for the rest of us, they say, and by metering usage they can ensure that these “data hogs” pay accordingly. That sounds perfectly reasonable, right?

Well, only sort of—the article discusses the tiered plan Time Warner is testing out, then goes on to say:

Time Warner would not reveal how many gigabytes an average customer uses, saying only that 95 percent of customers use under 40 gigabytes each in a month.

Ummmm… okay. Am I an “average customer?” I work from home, and I work on the internet. Although I’m not downloading music or watching videos (well, I occasionally do those things, but let’s say that 90% of the time I’m not), I am actively using the internet for somewhere in the neighborhood of… let’s say 50 hours/week. I’m not sure that’s completely accurate, but for the purposes of discussion, let’s say that it is.

Does that make me a so-called average customer? I have no idea whether I use under 40 gigabytes of data transfer in a month. And the cable company doesn’t seem to want to tell me, either.

Right now, for my 50 hours/week, I pay $40/month for DSL. We used to have broadband, and we paid $50/month for that; so let’s assume that $40 or $50 per month is about the average.

On the new pricing structure discussed in the article, I could pay $50 for a 40 gigabyte cap on my usage. That’s fine—that’s comparable to what I’m paying now, I guess. But then I would have to pay $1 for every gigabyte over that cap, and I’m guessing that could get expensive really quickly.

Again, I ask: Am I an “average user?” I don’t know, and they’re not telling. So either I’m fine and whining about nothing, or the fact that I’m using the internet to work from home is about to get a lot more expensive for me. Which is fine, I guess, seeing as how freelancing is ridiculously lucrative and rife with great benefits like 401k, ample vacation days, and fabulous, free health insurance….

Oh, wait….

Goooood morning! We’ve made it to the end of another week, and for the first time in a long time, I’m wishing it wasn’t Friday. Friends, I have wallpaper to scrape this weekend. Pray for me.

But you—you, you need some new blogs to read! You do not need to hear about my wallpaper woes! So let’s get to it.

If you’ve already had breakfast, check out these top 15 amazing facts about the human body. (If you haven’t had breakfast? Maybe wait.)

Only someone who claims to live in “Facking London” could write a post called “Snippets du Jour” that’s over 1600 words long. (I sort of have a girl crush on her. Don’t tell!)

This link is not a blog, it’s a video that might make you laugh out loud. Proceed accordingly.

Despite the somewhat startling title, I’ve been seeing links to this blog everywhere, lately. It’s a funny daddy blog, and I predict you will like it.

Here’s a post that made me go “Hmmmm…”; a little food for thought, perhaps.

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Looking for some shopping deals to go with your blog reading? Guess what! Work It, Mom! now has a very special section just for great deals, and it’s written by, um, me! A deal a day, every weekday. And maybe extras on Fridays, because I like you, and I like Fridays. Usually.

Have a great weekend, everyone!