Success

Saturday night I took some dear friends out for a special dinner. They are venturing into self proprietorship with a few weeks. I am thrilled to see them so excited about operating their own business. My husband and I have owned ours for nearly 17 years now. And while it’s more work than most people can believe, it is also extremely rewarding. Seeing something that you’ve put so much of yourself into and finally seeing it work the way you planned. (I imagine all the mothers out there will give me some stories too.) There are lots of pros and cons to self employment, one is of course flexibility, but that isn’t always the case. I’ve said before that the business I’m in is dependant on the summer’s heat. So while in the winter time I’m able to leave early, take a couple of days of here and there, in the summer I have to work much longer hours and often bring much of it home at night. I’m not complaining. Far from it, but every time people think I’ve got it made, they’ve got no idea at the cost of that freedom they think they see.

Sorry I rambled a bit, it happens often. So at dinner one of them asked me, “How long were you in business before you thought you were successful?” My immediate response, “I still don’t. I’m hoping maybe next year.” And we laughed, but then he got serious again. “No, really. How long?”

I couldn’t answer that. And it’s bugged me all weekend. Everyone's definition of success is different. And my husband and I are very driven people, so as soon as we met one threshold (being able to pay bills), we set another for ourselves (being able to pay employees), then another (let’s open a branch office 4 hours away), and then so on and so on. Even now, 17 years into our business, we keep pushing ourselves to do more. I’m sure everyone that looks at us thinks we’re successful, but I don’t think him and I see it that way. We both believe that once you become complacent, that's when the problems start to happen.

I asked him the question and he said we’re not successful yet. :-) Knew he’d say that. Now there are reasons why we push ourselves so hard, but I’m SO not getting into that here. But it is true, everyone’s definition of success is different. It’s all based on what your goals were, how you met them, and even your background. I believe I’m successful in my life, but not because of my business. I have a wonderful husband, my little girl is about the coolest thing on the planet, great friends and family that I love and adore. My child isn’t sick and I’m healthy so I know I should be here to raise her and I don’t have to worry too much about paying my bills. Although with gas prices, you never know. :-) Plus I get to pursue my dream of writing professionally. For me all of that is successful and I am grateful everyday for that. What is your idea of success?

Long time, No Post

Yes, I know I haven’t been around in a while. I haven’t even been lurking. Just started going back on looking at Leah’s blog. Real job has been keeping me busy with a vengeance.

Not much new in the writing front. Working on my third read through for the author I mentioned before. I haven’t asked her permission to mention her name yet, so I’ll refrain until I ask. I hope that I’m giving her good feedback on her work. I’ve really enjoyed this and her stories are great. I’m amazed at how quickly she is able to produce such varied works.

I was checking my emails this morning and came across an interesting article on man vs. woman language. Here’s the link. Interesting perspective on what men say and what it really means. Working with mostly men, I can say the article is pretty accurate. My only complaint is that my husband NEVER cleaned during the early part of our relationship. He does now, but that’s after years of being together. And as he tells it, he’s finally out of the mid life crisis that started when he was 16. At least that’s what he tells the guys.

What is the biggest difference in what a man says and what he really means?

Tag, I'm it.

Leah tagged me, so here it is:

1. What was I doing 10 years ago?
10 years ago I was planning my wedding to my husband. We had been living in sin, according to a large portion of my family, for the last seven and a half years. But we wanted to have a great big party with our wedding and had finally gotten ourselves in the position to pay for it. It was a blast.

2. What are 5 things on my to-do list today?

For work today: Get my VPN set up correctly for my other office. Go to the bank, try to clean desk some, pay bills. Deposit my credit card transactions, get square footages done on files for commissions for payroll this week.

Pick up Miss M, return library books, pick up and drop off dry cleaning, and if I can swing it, get her and my hair cut this afternoon. Oh, and I’m in the middle of rearranging her bedroom and organizing her toys, so hopefully get her books sorted and one box of toys sorted into: keeping, trash, and donate.

Oh yeah, plus fold three loads of laundry waiting to be folded and hopefully get two more loads washed tonight.

3. Snacks I enjoy.

I’m in a wedding later this year, so trying to shed the pounds the steroids gave me. (allergy problems) So lately my snacks have been rice cakes, which there is a lot of flavors now. Plus I have found some dark chocolate pudding cups that are only 100 calories. Yum.

4. Places I’ve lived, in no particular order.
Texas, Oklahoma, Alabama, Arkansas, Hawaii, and Las Vegas. Military brat.

5. Things I would do if I were a billionaire.

Oh, that’s a hard one. Too many things I’d like to do. Most certainly help my sisters out with some of their needs. Set up trust funds for my child and my nieces and nephews. Hire someone else in my office to help cover me so I can take an extended vacation in Europe. Probably take my family on a really cool vacation to Disney World (lots of young children) or a Disney Cruise.

Once reality set in then I would donate some time and money to my two favorite charities. Make a Wish and St. Jude’s.

Advanced Reader

Okay, okay. My wonderful friend Leah has sent me a few reminders to post. So hear it is.

I’ve been quite busy lately. I haven’t even been able to read up on my regular posts. For Shame!

I’m in a seasonal business and the hotter it gets the busier I get. Plus I’m working with a couple of IT guys developing some new software for my office, plus trying to be able to work from the new server remotely for my other office, which in three weeks has to be ready to go. I have to go to the other office (4 hours away or 5 for other people's driving speed) and install the new system. And I’m only half qualified to do it. So I’m crash course learning VPNs and a bit of networking. WAY over my head. But I think I may be able to pull it off. I’ll let you know.

Writing front – not much is happening on the actual writing. Got some things worked out in my head of how I’m going to point A to B to C and then to D for my story. I think I have something solved in my head , but I need to send Leah an email and ask her opinion. :)

However, I have some exciting news. In one of the classes I signed up for, during the intro’s I came across a published author that I had read quite a bit of. I shouted out to her to say “Hi, I like you work” and etc. without sounding too geeky. Not sure if I accomplished that but she did write back so I think I did okay. Anyways, we got to chatting and I offered up to be a sounding board for some stories she’s working on and she said she was looking for an advance reader. She has SIX books due to various publishers this year. I jumped at the chance and read the first three chapters of one these books and she liked my notes. Are they called note? Edits? Crits? What do you guys call them for advance readers?

So I’m an advanced reader now. YEAH!!!! I think this is a huge learning opportunity for me. It’s taken a lot of my writing time, but I think it will be so worth it. Maybe if I can do a good job on someone else’s stuff, once I get to a finished manuscript I’ll be able to look at my own work with that critical of an eye. Hopefully.

Warped Sense of Humor

I work under a ton of stress. Fast paced office, phones ringing on end, dealing with the dramas that are inevitable in an office environment, salesmen always trying sell me on the newest and greatest things that my company cannot live without (We usually can.) are just another thing that keeps me from doing ‘my real job’. And that's just the day job, not the mother and wife stuff or the writing stuff which is truly a second and third job. So what do I do to relieve stress?


I find things to laugh about. I have a completely twisted and warped sense of humor, including an odd way of looking at things that just adds to my cynicism. Everyone around me knows it. And most of my email/ blog/ internet friends get glimpses of it. At least I hope they do!


So my BD was a week and a half ago and my sister mailed my present. There were some problems with the shipping and it arrived here yesterday. I opened the box and it said knife set. I was SO upset. Hubby got me a really nice one for Christmas and I felt horrible trying to find a way to tell my sister I already had one. She knows how I like my cool kitchen gadgets. But I hated the thought she spent money on something I didn’t need. So I go through and opened the box that it’s in and find a delightful surprise.





Isn’t that too funny? It's called The Ex Knife Holder. Completely in line with my sense of humor. I love it so much that I don’t think I’m going to take it home. I want to keep it in my office. Maybe a warning to the salesmen and the guys that like to come annoy me?

What’s one of the funniest gifts you ever received?

Reward

The work front has been interesting this past week. It seems that anything that I actually have plugged in went on the fritz. It’s been a hassle and after today I’m finally seeing the light at the end. I have office staff issues, and then we have some litigation issues that are ‘no brainers’ for anyone with common sense, but that is the beauty of bureaucracy, you don’t have to have common sense. Plus I'm still trying to work out the bugs in my new database system. So I guess I'm juggling a lot right now. :)

The writing front was good. I’m a bit behind though. My BD was this past weekend and my husband threw a party for me. It was a blast, I hadn’t laughed so hard in quite a while. But it did cut into my writing. I had two really productive days and then nothing. But that leads me into my next thought.

I’m about ready to hit 25K words and I want to treat myself, very big into Positive Reinforcement. (I have a child; let me tell you Bribery works!) Now I don’t want anything fancy or big, just a little something to push myself, something that I can use to drive me to hit the next 25K.

A couple of years ago my friend Candace Havens talked about how she decided to treat herself to songs on her iPod. I have to say I like that idea. I haven’t taken my iPod out of my truck in months. So I really could use some new songs.

What do you do to reward yourself?

Inspiration?

My new website is up and running. It is beautiful, absolutely beautiful. Thank you Leah for doing yours and inspiring me to get off my duff and do mine. Rae Monet has created a truly inspiring piece of work. I’m telling you, it has totally kicked me into gear about my writing. I put up my word count on the blog and I can’t wait to write more and account for how much I’ve written.

So this week so far I’ve only written about 500 words. Last night I was really stuck on the scene structures. And I’d already skipped over this bit once so now I really have to do it. Not pretty writing, but nuts and bolts placement type of thing. I knew where I wanted it to go, just not quite sure how the characters where going to get there. They really do have minds of their own. And the story elapses in just a week to ten day period, so a lot has to happen in a very short amount of time. I was having problems getting the tidbits of information out in the best order.

As I sat there and pondered the scenes I got frustrated. Deciding I needed sleep, I went to soak in the tub. I typed up about five or six questions I needed worked out really big and propped it up next to the tub faucets. As I sat in the tub I just looked at my page and magic happened after that. The scenes just flowed in my head. Maybe it was the water. Maybe it was the list of questions. Who knows, I just hope it happens again the next time I get stuck.

What do you do when you need the muse to help you along?