Blogs

I’m moving my blog, mostly because I got tried of keeping two sets of software up to date.

New link: http://www.jackiepowers.com/pages/blog/1

New RSS feed link: http://www.jackiepowers.com/pages/blog/1/feed

And as for the b2evolution folks that decided that it wasn’t worth their time to make it easy to export info from their software to other software… folks, you want to do that so people say good things about your software. Duh! **sigh**

I got up this morning intending to spend 1/2 hour reading my email and the rest of the day working on paying-work stuff. But… of course… it didn’t happen.

The new Láadan Language site is up and my morning has been filled with fixing glitches that new eyes have spotted… stuff that really needed to be fixed before more eyes saw it.

And, to make matters worse, I completely forgot that I was supposed to get my contest score sheet totals to the overall contest coordinator on Friday… so I had to rush and get those in the mail to her. **sigh** Bad me for putting it off.

And, I needed to take the dog for a walk before the rain starts, because we both desperately need the exercise.

And… and… and…

And now all I can do is stare blankly at the screen.

Maybe (please God) if I spend 1/2 hour resting, I can work after I get the kid. And, yes, I’ll be ignoring emails until after I work, that will definitely help.

It was a busy day for me. I filed my extension for my taxes since I can’t pay them at the moment, but come the first of the month I should be able to, so all will be well.

And I spent the whole day today judging contest entries for my RWA chapter. This is the chapter’s main fund raiser, and there are never enough people to judge them, so even though I didn’t want to, I let myself get roped into it again this year. I was hoping that being a category coordinator (organizing stuff that other people judged) would be enough, but alas, that wasn’t the case.

I only had seven contest entries this year, which is fewer than most years, which was good. But they weren’t any better than any other year, which makes it terrible to try and judge. As a contest and a chapter, we pride ourselves on “do no harm", but God Almighty, that’s really hard to do with some of these entries. So **sigh** I don’t know if I succeeded in doing no harm or not, but I tried and they are done… which is all I really care about at the moment.

So, I’m exhausted and off to do something enjoyable for the first time in two days.

I did my taxes today, always a joy, but even more so this year because after getting down to the end, I discover that I owe money rather than getting a sizable amount back like I thought I would. **sigh** That was not the news I needed to get right now. What fun. **sigh again**

Awhile back I put a monthly income goal up on my vision board, a goal that I saw as attainable but out of the realm of possibility at the time. Then, yesterday, I realized that due to an interesting twist in circumstance, last month I brought in that much money, and I’ll do it again this month, and potentially for the next several months if not longer.

Huh. Who’d have thunk it?

The extra money came in with the intention of helping me pay off my debt… but is that the only/best use for that money? So I spent yesterday pondering how best to use the money.

About mid-afternoon inspiration struck: Use the money to de-stress my life rather than just blindly pay off debt.

Sure the debt is stressing me out, but if I use the money to only pay off my debt, I’ll get to the end of the money and be no further ahead than I am now.

Whereas, there are things that are stressing me out more than the debt, and with the terrible amount of stress I’m under, my muse has not just gone on vacation, she’s gone to the other side of the world and has no interest in returning.

So, if I destress my life, I’ll be able to write again, and I’ll be able to get some books done and money coming in. And, the reality is that be destressing my life, I actually may be able to pay off my debt faster.

So, that’s my goal. Figure out the highest priority stressors, use the money to cancel or mitigate the stress, and go on to the next one until I finally get to the point where my muse starts talking to me again.

And of course, I’m going to put up a new goal on my vision board with an even higher monthly income. I’ll keep you posted.