The baby has Croup again. We’ve been able to manage it so far, so no hospital visit yet.
For the good news now, I did the draw for the beautiful bracelet using a random, random number generator, and the winner is #9.. CARRIE!!! Congrats!!
For the other bracelets, one goes to Deborah and the other to Char. Congrats!!!
Please consider this my nablopomo post for today!
Have I ever told you about my basement? No, of course not, because it’s sort of a secret!
Besides the laundry room, which I rarely ever enter, the basement is completely filled with my stuff! And although it is all my stuff, I seldom find myself down there because, in all honesty, it’s a little creepy! But when I do go, it’s like a treasure hunt almost, I will see different things from my past, letters, photos, old calculators, books, and everything else… most of which have escaped my memory.
The main function of the basement though, is supposed to be as a workshop, or you know a “crafty-ish place”, and I even have a tonne of craft supplies as garnish, but sadly I don’t have any room to actually “craft”. Which I guess is ok, given the aforementioned ‘creepiness’!
So, today is the first day of NaBloPoMo and I am giving away a small (because I am not good at mailing big stuff, otherwise I would give you more, truly, you all are sooo worth it!) assortment of crafting supplies from my basement that’s full of secrets!
To find out how to enter, make sure you’re subscribed to this blog, either in your favorite feed reader or by email, there will be a giveaway post, visible only to subscribers, at the end of every week!
Awareness Always is a wonderful little company, providing beautiful, stylish and meaningful jewelry, to raise money and awareness for those affected by Cancer, Heart Disease and Strokes.
I finished up their online store just in time for the launch of Breast Cancer Awareness month! Working with Jane, the owner, was a wonderful experience, she’s not only an excellent client, but such an amazing person. She and her husband generously donated this beautiful bracelet for me to give to one of my lucky readers!
Please check out their site Awareness Always and get something to “wear for someone you love”!
To enter, just leave a comment here! 
Random draw on November 5th, 2007.
I recently started my adventure as a work at home mom type, and there have been moments when I felt like a complete failure, moments when I thought I was quite clearly losing my mind, and moments when I was apparently ‘not behaving good at all’ and had to be reprimanded by my 4 year old son – “mommy, you are using too many bad words today, too many! You have to stop it now!”
But as challenging as it is to work at home while caring for 3 small kids, it is not impossible, and can even be rewarding. Everyday I try to find the secret formula that would make this initiative ‘easy’, or less hard at least, I have a hunch though that there’s really no secret, instead we have to make do with some mommy-hacking and a few great strategies for working at home.
There are days when I literally just cry over the client deadlines, screaming kids, needy husband, and the complete disaster that is our house, and days when I just am so exhausted it’s almost impossible to even function, but then there are days when I create an entire website in only a few early morning hours and the client totally adores it, days when the house is clean, dinner is cooked, and I still have time for a dvd with my hubby, and days when I can drop everything and head out for a kiddie-sized adventure – and then I know that it’s all worth it.
If I had to pick one thing that I missed the most about a ‘real’ job, it would be having a team, or just people to interact with and talk to on a daily basis, people to share my ideas with and to get feedback from, but at least I do have my darling husband, who, ummm, at least tries to be supportive with his “it looks good, what else do you want me to say? I told you that all websites look the same to me!” standard response each time I solicit his opinion on one of my creations.
My almost-daily haunts are invaluable in inspiring and motivating, or just in making me feel connected, you know, like Chris – what can I say, the woman has 7 kids, and of course, Wendy – she must be like the queen of working at home! Jen talks about motherhood and wifey-hood in a way that I can really relate to, Randa is my example of a successful webby mom, to keep up with the single peeps, I love Organic’s little home in the blogisphere, and there are so many more of you, too many to list here, but I will have a list of my reads out soon.
After much trepidation, I finally began to publicize my portfolio, and gained some really lovely clients, I launched 2 free themes – Sakeena for WordPress and Life for Textpattern, and I taught a web development course, which started off great and slowly waned due to mid-summer-madness-syndrome affecting my students – I postponed the class until September.
It’s funny that some days I lament over my life, or lack of a ‘life’, and I know that there are working moms wishing to be able to stay at home, and stay at home moms longing to work – sometimes it just feels like a no-win kind of situation – but such is the nature of motherhood, it’s our ability to do what we believe is best for ourselves and our families that will help us find peace and fulfillment. My most important lessons – find time for some mom escapes, don’t panic, avoid the parent trap , and enjoy life!!
Now, the contest!!
All you need to do is subscribe to this blog, either through your feed reader or email (if you’re already subscribed, thanks! and of course you’re also welcome to enter) and leave a comment here – I am doing a random draw on August 21st. Good Luck!!
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
