Lookee! Here I am--back again in less than a month!

Today's schedule includes doing laundry. I do like working from home--the ability to get some of these little chores done "on the side" is a gift. I took time this past weekend (still working 7 days/week, yes, but slowing down a lot on the weekends) to go through the newest Pile (misc mail, mostly junk) and get rid of what was get rid-of-able. What's left just needs to be filed--but that means opening the door to the Storage & Filing half of the closet which means facing the three Piles I shoved in there two months ago, promising myself I'd deal with them "very soon."

Newest account went live today. I'm dubious. Doubtful. Dithering.

I have no objection to a d i e t program, but I'm not a fan of this particular one so far. Although the cost is low, what you get when you opt to pay is (IMO) not worth the price. They need three or four times the amount of information to justify asking people for money to access it.

Louie Louie (it's one of his clients) is taking my objections to them--if they don't decide to provide content worth the cost, I may have to take an ethical stand.

I hate that.

I don't know, though. There's some content behind the paywall, and some of it is of value. I'm going to have to decide just how much to let my own opinion of clients' businesses affect my decision to work with them. (I suspect, knowing me, the answer will have to be "quite a lot.")

Before the holidays, I had a Big Client Nibble but it seems to have been just that--a nibble. Haven't heard a peep from them since.

I got a nibble for a mediumish (is too a word) account yesterday. I'm letting Gidget and Vela take point on that one--I suspect most of the work the client will wind up wanting will be in their areas of specialty. It could produce a modest initiative in my own area, though.

That plus the new account, the newest account, and the second-oldest new account, all of which have and/or will activate this month, will add a nice increment to my income. (At the moment, I'm making so little that these 3-4 new accounts will almost double my income. Still--I tell myself that I never expected to be raking in big bucks a scant 60 days after opening my self-employment doors.)

I've also been dithering about my annual trip to CA. It's time and past time that I made plane and hotel reservations and whatnot, but I haven't been able to make up my mind whether or not to spend the money, what with my current income and all.

The cost of the trip, no matter how economically I try to do it, winds up being about equal to a month's rent & utilities. A fair-sized chunk of dough. And yet, the point of being self-employed was partly to leave me time for more of a life, right? To loosen up my schedule and leave me more time to do a wider variety of things? Still. Enough money to cover R&U for a month?

This morning, with great reluctance, I decided to pass on the trip.

Makes me sad.

Part of me is still dithering and deciding.

It's Friday! This coming weekend I anticipate finally having the time to watch the new DVDs I got for Christmas!

Also, to beat the final boss monster in one of the games I got, so I can let myself open the second game and start on it. (Current game: Final Fantasy III. Next game: Rune Factory 3.)

A day or two ago I knocked off work early and had an amazon.com blowout, spending a gift certificate Santa brought me and then this morning, in my email, lo! another one appeared! Blowout #2, here I come--filling up my Kindle!

New books! I can't tell you how excited I am--buying an armload (even a virtual, electronic one) of new books all at once--that's not something I ever let myself do any more--first from a lack of shelf space and later (after the Frugality Program set in, during my last bout of unemployment) because of the cost.

At the moment, though, I'm re-reading Dickens, though. It's a real advantage to be in love with authors whose works are in the public domain. Not necessarily because I was able to download all their works for free, but because doing so inspired me to re-read the books.

If I ever wondered why I kept giving them shelf room all these years--now I remember.

In the middle of David Copperfield at the moment. The villains are a bit over-drawn, especially for modern sensibilities, and Our Hero is a bit of a doormat, but those faults are offset by the endless battle of the donkeys and by the immortal Micawbers.

I don't know why I thought you'd care about any of that.