I’ve Moved!

Sort of. I changed hosts, but I’m still located at jeanmariebauhaus.com. This post is for the benefit of anyone who subscribes to new posts via e-mail, a feed reader, or the WP.com reader. If you’d like to keep following my blog, you’ll need to re-subscribe to it at the new site.

Just click here to go to the new self-hosted blog. In the sidebar you’ll see options to subscribe via e-mail or subscribe in a feed reader.

If you want to continue being able to read my blog in your WordPress.com Reader, click the Manage button next to Followed Sites and paste https://jeanmariebauhaus.com/feed into the search box. A link to follow that feed should appear under the search box. Click that, and you’re done!*

*Note that things are still in transition regarding nameservers and whatnot, so it might be a couple of days before this actually works.

This will be my last post here on WP.com for the time being. I’m leaving this blog up until I’m sure I’ve got everything moved over okay, and I may continue to leave it here as a backup in case the new site ever gets hacked or goes down for any reason. But barring that, come on over and visit my new site (same as the old site)!

It’s Happening…

I’m moving to a new web host. Jeanmariebauhaus.com might be down for a few days as a result. Meanwhile, you can still get here via jeanmariebauhaus.wordpress.com. Once my paid account here expires tomorrow, you’ll probably start seeing ads, and possibly even sponsored posts, inserted by WP.com. Those have nothing to do with me — they’re the price of a “free” account.

Once everything is moved over, I’ll announce it here and on Facebook. If you follow this blog via WP.com, you’ll probably have to re-subscribe over at the new host, or enter the new RSS feed into your WP.com feed reader. More on that once everything’s set up.

So let’s give self-hosted WP another whirl. I signed up for a three-year account. Here’s hoping I won’t regret this move…

Coffee Talk: Puppy Edition (Because This is Our Life Now)

Hiya, folks. It’s been a minute. March got swallowed up inside a Dixie-shaped vaccuum. I tell you what, we knew getting a puppy would be a challenge, but we didn’t know we were getting such a high-strung puppy. Apparently, there are two main types of German shepherds, a fact that didn’t turn up in our initial research. The show line GSDs are your more classic-looking, laid-back ones who excel at obedience and make good pets.

And then there’s working line. Which is what Dixie is. These are the extremely driven GSDs who make good police and protection dogs. Which is good, because we wanted a protection dog. Working line GSDs also tend to be hardier and less prone to hip problems. All cool. But did I mention the extremely driven, aka extremely ENERGETIC, part? She’s also extremely bitey, but we’ve been reassured that this is mostly a puppy thing that she’ll eventually outgrow, and until then I just need to wear gloves if I don’t want my hands shredded.

So we got off to a rocky start with our little zoomie, fur-covered crocodile. But thankfully, we found an excellent online trainer who specializes in working line breeds, and his guidance already has worked wonders. If you’ve got a dog who’s a handful, especially a large breed, I highly, highly recommend Robert Cabral. His membership site is worth every penny, and he also has a YouTube channel.

We’ve had Dixie about a month now, and we’re finally settling in and starting to enjoy each other. She’s already a whiz at some commands, but a work in progress with others. She’s starting to catch on to how fetch works and she’ll do just about anything for a treat. Best of all, she’s only needing one middle of the night potty break and is staying quiet in her crate (mostly) until we wake up in the morning. Praise hands!

I can’t get over how much she’s already grown and changed in the last month. She’s already looking like a miniature German shepherd. The bottom left pic above was taken last week. Those ears are trying so hard to stand up straight. As of this morning, one ear is standing straight up and the other is still drooping at the tip. It’s adorable and I need to be sure to get a picture before they change again. Before this pic was taken, she went through an awkward phase where one drooped forward and the other flopped sideways, and I’m heartbroken that I didn’t get a pic.

So last month, as I said, was pretty much consumed by our new puppy. I also squeezed in a couple of freelance assignments (hallelujah!), and we got out and got yard work done when Dixie was sleeping and it wasn’t raining. Also, my mom is dealing with some major health stuff that landed her in the hospital this week. She’s home now, but she’s got a leaky heart valve for which they’re still going over treatment options. They also suspect she somehow has liver disease, but they’re prioritizing dealing with her heart before they go down that avenue. In short, March was a stressful, exhausting month in which no unpaid writing happened, not counting the last post I did here early on.

But it’s a new month — my birthday month, no less — and it’s kicking off with a weekend that’s all about life triumphing over death, light overcoming darkness, and good utterly defeating evil. I’m going to take the weekend off to celebrate the resurrection of my Lord and Savior, as well as my birthday, and then next week I’m going to do my utter best to resurrect my novel-in-progress and get it finished. I don’t know how this will work between puppy training, walks, yard work, freelancing and prepping and planting our new garden beds (we ended up canceling our chicken order because that just felt like too much to deal with right now), but I’ll work it in somehow.

And on an administrative note, WordPress.com made some changes since my last post and took away the option to switch from their highly PITA block editor to their classic editor. My paid hosting account here is up for renewal, and I’ve been kicking around the idea of switching back to self-hosted WordPress. This development might push me over the edge into that decision. Which means there might be a brand new website coming soon! Stay tuned.

Here’s hoping to get back to posting regular updates!

So We Did a Thing…

The last couple of weeks have been a bit of a whirlwind. I was kind of amazed to look at the date this morning and see that we’re already a full week into March. March! Are you kidding me? It felt like February would never end, but now here we are less than a week from Daylight Savings time and only two weeks away from actual spring.

Weekend before last was a very full one. I spent Saturday, which is normally my sabbath/rest/be lazy as all get-out day, cleaning, going over my accounting and doing our taxes while Matt was out at an all-day thing. Then on Sunday we both went to another all-day thing with our new friends. It was a very long and full day and by the end of it I was completely introverted out, but I was also covered in tiny paw prints and slobber from our friends’ two adorable Chihuahuas, and that filled my heart in a way that it hadn’t been filled for too long. I also got to pet goats and pigs and got a lesson in gardening, so it was a day well spent.

I took Monday off to recover. Which mostly involved lazing around and watching YouTube and reading, but also a perusal of a certain section of Craigslist, which led to a decision made on Tuesday to do a certain other thing. Prior to that, my plan was to spend the rest of the week getting back into a writing routine for my novel and this here blog, but the rest of the week ended up being all about prepping for said thing instead.

And then on Friday, we went and did the thing.

Guys, meet Dixie.

At seven weeks and ten pounds, her favorite things are sleeping, belly rubs, chewing everything she can get her mouth on, and playing in the leaves.

We’ve had her now for roughly 76 hours but it feels like much longer. This probably has a lot to do with the fact that we barely slept the first night. We followed all of the YouTube trainers’ instructions on getting them to sleep quietly in their crate overnight, and those instructions did not work at ALL. I ended up caving and pulling her out of there around 1 AM and letting her sleep with me on the couch so we could get some sleep. That’s pretty much been the arrangement every night so far, and we’re very tired.

But otherwise, things are going well. She’s incredibly bright and has already learned a ton, and we’ve established a routine that basically goes like wake up, potty and eat and/or get a drink, play/train/exercise until she passes out, get stuff done while she’s asleep, repeat throughout the day until time for bed. Have I mentioned that we’re very tired?

Tired, but full. Her gotcha day was full of mixed emotions–we’re both still not over Pete, nor will we ever be, and it still feels a bit too soon for this. But at the same time, she’s already starting to fit in and feel like family. We’re all falling in love and learning and building trust, and I must say, it’s pretty amazing. And it’s a very different experience, too. For one thing, she’s the youngest puppy either of us has ever had, so the learning curve there is really high. For another, at seven weeks she’s already more than twice the size of Pete and growing fast (I think she might already have put on a pound or two since we brought her home). Although she’s tiny for a German shepherd, after him she feels huge.

Right now, at this stage, she enjoys a certain amount of lap cuddles, and we’re both trying to take advantage of that as much as we can while she’s still small enough for them. There’s that part of us that can’t wait for her to grow into an actual dog and not be such a handful to manage, but we’re trying to enjoy this stage, knowing how nostalgic we’ll be for this time a year from now when she’s five to ten times the size she is now. I don’t think she’ll get huge — her parents are both about mid-sized, as far as GSD’s go — but she’s a definite change from the tiny little puppers we’re used to.

Today we achieved a major victory — getting her to hang out by herself in her crate with the door closed without acting like she’s dying. Tomorrow, we’ll take some of the chicken wire we picked up for our eventual chicken tractor and see if we can rig up some kind of exercise/emergency potty pen around the front of the crate, and then we’ll work on getting her to sleep in the crate overnight with the door open into the pen, and work on getting me back into my own bed.

As I’m writing this, she’s sacked out on the floor next to my feet. Before long it will be time for another trip outside and another round of play and exercise until she’s ready to pass out again. We’re going to be in such great shape because of this dog, y’all. Don’t bother with a gym membership — just get a large breed puppy, and you’ll never miss a day of exercise.

But you will miss some sleep.

In other news, I signed on with another content marketing client — I’ll be helping out with a breed profile project for Chewy’s blog. And my steadiest client, the one who informed me early last month that they were slowing article production, is going to have me writing infographic copy instead, which comes with a significant pay raise. So things are looking way, way up in freelance writing land. Which means I can stop spending all my time and energy trying to find work and start focusing back on my novel and blog again… once we get this whole puppy sleep situation sorted out and my brain is functional for something more challenging than a stream-of-consciousness blog post.

This was indeed a long, dark winter, but spring is nearly here, and things are looking so much brighter. And in a few more weeks, we’ll get our chickens! Squee!

Coffee Talk: Disappointment, Made Better by Sunshine

Remember those exciting decisions we made a few weeks back that I was looking forward to revealing this week?

Welp, things didn’t go as planned. But when do they ever, really?

Our first decision was to get some chickens. More specifically, we decided to put in an order for 15 buff orpington chicks (14 laying hens and one rooster), which were to arrive this week.  We placed the order and then went out and got everything we needed to raise them, and were all set to receive them this week. Instead, we received a notice that the USPS extended last week’s weather-induced embargo on live animal shipping to the end of this week, in order to let them catch up on undelivered mail.

So now we won’t be getting our chicks until April. Which means no eggs until next fall at the earliest. Le sigh.

On the plus side, this gives us more time to figure out our chicken coop/tractor design and what we’re going to do about predators, and also now we won’t have to house juvenile chickens inside until it’s warm enough to put them outside.

So that’s one disappointment. And that decision had led to our second decision, which was to be our solution to the predator problem: getting a livestock guardian dog. You guys, we had decided to get a puppy. Specifically, we were all set to get an Anatolian shepherd puppy.

But for a variety of reasons, that also ended up falling through. There were just too many obstacles that kept cropping up that ultimately convinced us that it’s not the right time yet, and also that perhaps that’s not the right breed. And while I can see now that it’s for the best that things didn’t work out, I was pretty torn up about it when it became clear that it wasn’t going to happen.

Not that we won’t be getting another dog, or perhaps even a puppy, at some point. We’re keeping an eye on the local shelters for something suitable, and we haven’t completely ruled out an Anatolian when another one becomes available. But it won’t be that sweet girl that we had our eye on and were all ready to bring home, and I’m sad about that.

Also, today marks three months since Pete’s passing, so there are mixed emotions. We still miss the heck out of him and, truth be told, we aren’t quite ready to move on to a new pup just yet. We’re trusting in God’s timing and praying that he’ll lead us to the right dog at the right time. He’s got an excellent track record of bringing us excellent dogs at just the right time, so we just need to be patient and trust that he’ll do it again.

Besides, Boudicca is enjoying the heck out of being an only furbaby for the time being. She’s getting spoiled rotten.

So it’s been a week full of disappointment, but there’s been cause for rejoicing, too. The weather thawed out, the last two days have been spring-like and full of sunshine, we got our well fixed and our water restored yesterday, and today I took my first shower in *mumblety* days.

In lieu of all the animal wrangling we thought we’d be doing this week, we’ve been cleaning and organizing, and I’ve been busy marketing myself and reaching out to potential clients. I’m still waiting for my newest client to start sending me work, and in the mean time I’ve been posting articles from my old freelance writing Substack to my Medium account. I finally signed up to the Medium Partner’s Program, which means my stories earn a little bit of money when paying members read them, so if you’ve got a paid Medium membership, spending some time reading my recent articles is an easy way you could help us out while we wait for new work to start coming in.

So is buying my books, if any of them look good to you. Most of them are also available on Overdrive through your local library (did you know indie authors get paid when you check out their books through the library? The more you know…).

Of course, we’re both also always grateful to be supported through prayer.

Maybe it’s just the weather turning that’s making me optimistic, but I have a feeling things are going to get back on track and start going our way again soon. I hope. At any rate, barring any other unforeseen catastrophes, I can look forward to getting fluffy baby chickens for my birthday, and there still may be a puppy in our near future. And we need to get busy starting seeds and getting our garden beds ready for spring planting. And I’ve still got a novel to finish. So it’s not like there’s not plenty to keep us busy while we wait for things to work out.

How are you faring in the aftermath of Winterpocalypse ’21? Are you recovering, or are you still dealing with yuck? And how can I pray for you?

Coffee Talk: So Winter. Much Brrr.

When I sat down last Sunday with my bullet journal to plan my week, I knew I was going to be dealing with a high degree of unpredictability. Instead of listing out my usual weekly to do list, I instead listed out a few goals that I hoped I’d be able to get around to, along with an overriding goal: “Be Flexible!”

That willingness to be flexible and hold my goals loosely turned out to be a real asset in a week full of misadventures that included (thankfully brief) power outages, learning to use our kerosene heater (which didn’t come with a manual), exploding Pyrex, 2 AM hikes through the snow in sub-zero temperatures, getting lunged at by our new neighbor’s cranky, arthritic old pit bull, not a lot of sleep, and becoming reliant on baby wipes and dry shampoo. But despite all of that, we were a lot better off this week than a lot of people, so I have no complaints.

By the way, I’m praying for you, Texas. ♥

I did manage to get around to a few of my goals this week, including pitching another potential client, updating my pet blog, posting some articles to my Medium account, and applying to write for a publication there. As for the pet blog, I wrote a detailed content marketing and SEO guide for pet businesses, but the advice applies to any type of business (and to writing for the internet in general), so if that’s something you might be able to use, be sure to check it out.

As for making progress on the novel, that didn’t happen this week. A general rule for me and the way I’m wired is that novel writing just doesn’t happen when I’m in survival mode, and this week was primarily about surviving with all of our digits and our sanity intact. There were some touch-and-go times when losing said sanity was a greater danger than frostbite, but we managed to keep it along with all our fingers and toes.

As I write this, it’s a balmy 30 degrees outside, and melting snow is dripping from the roof. We’re in for one more night of single-digit temps, and then it’s supposed to start thawing out tomorrow. To say I’m looking forward to it is an understatement. I’ll just say I’m so, so very glad to live where this sort of cold is an anomaly (and Lord willing it will stay that way) and, when it does happen, it’s usually short-lived. Somebody remind me that I said this when it’s 100 degrees in July and I’m tempted to complain about the southern humidity.

Next week is bound to be another week requiring a high degree of flexibility, for reasons pertaining to one of those decisions I mentioned last week (if not to both of them). Probably not a lot of writing will get done, but I’ll give it a valiant effort. Hopefully, though, you can look forward to a big reveal by this time next week.

How are you coping with this week (or was it business as usual where you live)?

Photo by Alex on Unsplash

Coffee Talk: Novel Progress, Job Hunt Progress, and Secrets Brewin’ Around the Homestead

Since these updates are coming more randomly now, let’s try a new title.

Wow, you guys, last week was kind of a crazy one, and this week also got off to an unexpected start.  I can’t tell y’all too much about it — or rather, I don’t want to just yet — but I can say that decisions were made regarding the ol’ homestead that left us neck-deep in research and that are going to make our lives here at the Bauhaushold a little topsey turvey for a while. What those decisions were, I’m going to leave for a surprise. Suffice to say, we’ve got a lot to do in the coming weeks to get ready.

I really wish I could tell you where we went and what we did yesterday, but that would spoil the best surprise. I’ll be sure to “circle back” to it when the time is right. I can tell you that it involved getting to know some more good people from our area and spending more than an hour outdoors in the freezing drizzle with an insufficient number of layers, and that when we got back I was slightly damp, covered in hair, and I couldn’t feel my feet. But I was also very excited about the future.

We had planned to get busy this week with some of our preparations, but full-on winter weather kicked in here and it looks like it’s going to be hanging around a while. So I’m trying to take advantage of being stuck indoors to make some progress on the writing and freelance job hunting front. As far as the latter goes, I’ve got some great news! I’ve been invited to join the content team for Care Credit, so they should start sending work my way soon.

So with one new steady corporate client secured, the goals I’m focusing on now are to find one or two more clients of that caliber, and to break into writing for trade magazines. To that end, one thing I actually managed to get done last week was set up this landing page for my services.

As far as the novel goes, I’m making progress in small bites, committed to working on it at least twenty minutes a day. I know that sounds short, but I can usually do a couple of pages in that length of time. In those short but consistent bursts of time, I finished the epilogue and then went back and finished the big scene I’d left off on. Now I’ve just got several short, action-packed scenes leading up to the final confrontation.

Somewhere in the midst of all of this I realized a few things. One is that I’m not wired to be a fast and prolific novelist, and I’m okay with that. Also, that I enjoy novel writing so much more when I’m not putting pressure on it to become my primary career. I labored for years thinking that was The Dream, and being constantly frustrated and disappointed at that not working out.

But these days, my dreams are looking a lot more like making a living doing tangible things that involve working with my hands in the real world, far from a keyboard, and I’m growing more and more at ease with the idea of my novel writing being a side gig, something I do mostly for fun and relaxation with the added benefit of bringing in a little extra income each month.

And the third thing I realized is that I’m happiest when my life is full and I have a variety of things to do. I think by now, as I edge ever closer to the end of my fourth decade, I know myself well enough to know that even if I was making a full-time living from my novels, I still wouldn’t want to do that all day and I would still need some variety in my life. There are a number of labels for this — scanner personality, multi-passionate, renaissance soul, ADD — and I’m learning to embrace it. An that’s sure making my life a lot more enjoyable than fighting it.

See also: learning to let go, go with the flow, be flexible, and trust in God’s timing, doing what I can each day and trusting Him for the rest.

Anyway, I can’t wait to reveal the things we’re getting ready for. One of them will be here in a couple of weeks, Lord willing, but we’re going to have to wait more than a month for the second thing, and that’s going to be the hardest secret to keep. So stay tuned (but feel free to guess what they might be). In the meantime, I’ll continue to get writing things done in between all the preparations.

Friday Update: Homestead Chores, Catnip and Freelance Writing Goals

Welp, this was not a good week for the novel. Today was a warmish and pretty day, so I scrapped all my writing plans for today and we went outside and “did the things” around the homestead. Said things included some minor repairs around the property, and gathering materials for what will eventually be our garden beds.

It also included discovering catnip! I’ve long suspected that the weed growing underneath our pole barn might be just that, based on the way our tabby, Boudicca, goes nuts every time I walk through it and track some in on my shoes, but I kept forgetting to check and make sure. Today I remembered, and sure enough, it’s catnip.

I picked a bunch to dry and, after rinsing it, gave her a tiny nibble — and created a monster. I had to hide the rest of it to keep it away from her until she calmed down. But I’ve been meaning to get some decent quality catnip to put inside the kick pillow I made for her a while back, so once this stuff dries out that’s where it’s headed, and she’ll be happy again.

I also discovered that I’m out of shape. I haven’t been walking since winter started, and I’m going to have to make myself get out there and start doing that again, as the weather permits. I know it’s so much better for my mood and my health once I get over the hurdle of going out in the cold.

As far as the work search goes, this week was mostly about laying ground work and coming up with a solid plan. I updated my long-neglected portfolios and reworked my bio to take the emphasis off of pet writing. I did send out a letter of introduction and a query letter, both of which I’m still waiting to hear back on, and I wrote and submitted an article on spec, which was promptly rejected, with helpful feedback. I appreciate both the feedback and the promptness, and now that article will find a home on Medium, if I don’t decide to shop it around a bit more first.

As far as the game plan, I will bore you with the details, because it’s my blog and I can, but you don’t have to stick around if you don’t want to.

I’ve set four goals to focus on: one, to find two or three more steady corporate/big brand clients; two, to broaden out my niches to include business-to-business writing, as well as content writing in the areas of personal finance, health and nutrition for humans, and writing and freelancing; three, to pursue ghostwriting, something I’ve kicked around in the past but have never gone after full bore; and four, to expand my pet writing niche to pet trade magazines.

My first goal is primary, and if I can manage to replace my previous corporate clients, then I can pretty much stop there, because that will supply all the work I need, although this time around I’ll also keep pitching and writing in other niches to keep some diversity in my portfolio and bring in extra income.

At any rate, until I get some steady work coming in, my plan is to spend an afternoon each day of the week on a single goal– corporate on Monday, pitching in other niches on Tuesday, networking in ghostwriting circles on Wednesday, and researching and pitching trade mags on Thursday. And then setting Fridays aside for novel writing and book marketing.

So that’s the plan, and it’s helping everything to feel more manageable. That doesn’t cover everything, though. I still need to create some business writing samples, update my LinkedIn profile, and I’m debating on whether to just do a landing page on this site for my freelance work or set up a separate website. I was planning to do the former, but now I’m leaning toward the latter. I’ll take the weekend to think about it and let you know what I decide.

None of last weekend’s plans panned out — instead of watching our movie, husband and I ended up just talking while he made enchiladas, about which I have zero complaints, on either count. So maybe we’ll pick back up with the Ring Council tomorrow. All I know for sure is that I need a break from being on this laptop.

I hope you and yours have an excellent weekend!

An Off-Schedule Wednesday Check-In: New Friends, Not Enough Sleep, and Getting Things Done

Hoo boy, this week has not been the week in which I get organized and start managing my time better, let me tell you.

The week started on a high note by making new friends! You have no idea how exciting this is for us — these are the first friends we’ve made since moving to Arkansas two years ago. We met them on a “blind friend date” at a diner on Monday morning, and our breakfast meetup turned into an all day conversation. Thankfully, they knew the owners so we didn’t get kicked out and the wait staff didn’t give us too much stink eye.

So that was cool, and now we actually know some people here, which is awesome, but by the time we got home late in the afternoon, Monday was pretty much shot.

And then for some reason, I woke up at four AM the next morning and couldn’t get back to sleep. I used to be able to function okay on six hours of sleep, but those days are far behind me. Fueled by coffee and good intentions, I managed to update my freelance portfolios and send out some letters of introduction, but that’s about it.

Today was going to be the day that I really kicked some butt in the productivity department. But alas, my brain has been scattered all day, and focus has been an elusive friend. It hasn’t been a total waste — I didn’t exactly kick any butt, but I managed to kick the day in the shins by tracking down some old press releases I wrote years ago that can go in my business-to-business portfolio, along with some personal finance articles, PLUS I submitted a pitch to a homesteading publication, so we shall see if that leads anywhere.

I also did a lot of market research. And now I’m at that point where my head feels full in the same way that my stomach feels full when I overeat. I’m not sure whether that’s an ADD thing or an overstimulated HSP thing, but it’s not a great feeling either way. So now I’m dumping all of this here in the hopes that getting it out will relieve some of the pressure in my head. And it seems to be working! Thank goodness — it’s not like I can unbutton my head pants or anything.

This week’s got two days left. I’m hoping to send out some more pitches tomorrow, as well as sit down and come up with a plan to get organized. And I’m really hoping to set aside a chunk of time on Friday to work on the novel. I will most likely see you back here then.

How’s your week going?

Photo by Danielle MacInnes on Unsplash

Friday Update: Surviving Inauguration Day, Looking for Work, and Novel Progress, Such as it Is

Happy Friday, gang!

Regardless of your feelings about the new administration, can we all just breathe a big sigh of relief now that we’re on the other side of the inauguration and all of the media hysterics about violent protests turned out to be a big nothing burger? To say nothing of all of the Q-conspiracists’ talk about 4D chess and insurrection acts and EMP/cyber attacks and last minute military coups.

While I’d be lying if I said I’m optimistic about things, or that the unity they keep claiming they want is actually possible at this point, I do feel like a load’s been taken off now that we’ve had a peaceful transition.

On a related note, on Wednesday I posted an article about narcissistic projection that nobody seems to have read. Maybe because I gave it a bad title. At any rate, I’m mentioning it again because I think this is important information. So as long as you’re here, take a few minutes to give it a read.

I didn’t get a lot of writing done this week, mostly because I’ve been prioritizing prayer above everything else this week, and also we had a lot to get done around the house. I did finally take a few minutes this morning to add a few hundred words to the epilogue I started on Monday. Or rather, that I ended on Monday. Today I went back and wrote the beginning of it.

I haven’t been very organized with my time lately (if by “lately” you mean since this whole pandemic started ten months ago) and that really needs to change. This may be the last week I can realistically keep up with my daily blog challenge (I didn’t blog here yesterday, but I sent out a newsletter, and that counts). Last night, I learned that my only remaining steady writing client is going to be drastically reducing their assignment volume, so I’m going to have to start hustling to round up some new clients, and that’s going to keep me busy. Marketing and looking for new work is even more of a full-time job than having work. The silver lining in all of this is that it’s the kick in the pants I needed to finally break into business-to-business writing, which pays a lot better than the business-to-consumer content I’ve been writing these past seven or eight years. Say a prayer for me and wish me luck.

But with all that in mind, if I only have time for a little bit of writing on the side each day and it’s a choice between the blog or the novel, I’m going to prioritize the novel. I’m still going to aim for at least two or three updates here a week, though, so it’s not like I’m going away, just scaling back a bit.

So that’s been my week, in a nutshell. My weekend plans include avoiding the news and watching another hour or two of Fellowship (it’s the extended edition, in case you haven’t guessed–last time we left off right as the members of the Fellowship arrived for Elrond’s council meeting) and brushing up on my article pitching knowledge. Oh, and maybe also taking down the Christmas decorations. I was determined to leave it up all winter as a symbol of defiant hope, but we need to clear some space and so we need to pack it all up and put it in storage to make some room for a couple of projects.

It’s going to be sad to take it down, though, not the least of which is because Pete was still with us when we put it all up. Putting it all away is going to make his passing seem all the more final. I really miss my dog, y’all. It’ll be two whole months on Sunday and we’re both still struggling to adjust to his absence.

I hope everyone reading this has a blessed and restful weekend. ♥