While the average 9-5er has an alarm clock, I have a….telephone.  It’s nearly guaranteed (and I guess that’s a good thing, if it’s so consistent!) that the phone will ring and wake me at a decent hour on most weekdays if I’m not already up.  This is even more the case when that weekday is a Monday.  I have come to somewhat dread Mondays, knowing that they tend to be very chaotic, with requests flying at me via phone, email and, in extreme cases, carrier pigeon…

Sarah from Sea to Sky phoned this morning and I got up shortly thereafter to find an email from her with the hi-res picture we needed to finish the proposal document, which I did quickly and sent to her, along with an invoice that may or may not get paid.  I don’t intend on doing a (maybe) freebie again.  They’ve had a taste and that’s it.  From here on out, it’ll be strictly show-me-the-money time or never mind!

Finished up a couple of other small items for Rennie and then set about to the uber-annoying task of invoicing for said small items.  Now, don’t get me wrong, having things to invoice for in the first place elates me.  It’s the going back and figuring out what all I did – which is a somewhat manageable task since I keep all the requests in Excel with a description, date, who ordered the item, etc. – and then pricing everything.  I was astonished to realize that my Southmere invoice totalled $5600 once I’d included all the ads,  handouts, postcard design, web site and signage updates I’ve done for them of late.  Man, I tell you what….I may propose a project for $8000 in the beginning, but I usually end up making way more on all the other small things that they have me do during and after the main items are done.  Thank you Lord for (short-term) residual income!  I also invoiced for the Azure ad that they drove me insane with for two weeks….oh, and they will pay – $800 worth of invoicing for a single ad.  $100 for initial re-size/changes, $100 for each additional alternate layout and $50 for each round of additional revisions.  I’m always nervous they’re going to question or freak out over what I’m invoicing, but damn, they asked me for all this stuff and I’m not pricing anything exhorbitantly, it’s just a lot of small stuff that adds up.  We’ll see how Sarah reacts tomorrow when she sees what I sent her.

We had some really strange weather around lunchtime…it was raining, then I caught a glimpse of what looked like snow and, sure enough, there were giant wet flurries coming down for a little while, quickly followed by hail and then slushy rain before it quit altogether.  Supposedly,it’s going to snow on Wednesday – it’s MARCH, for God’s sakes!  I want it to warm up a bit…I’m sick of wearing jackets/sweatshirts, etc. – I want to wear my capri pants without needing leg warmers!  For the record….I do NOT own leg warmers!  :-p

I went for a walk around the park in spite of the ickiness of the weather, though it was not raining while I was there. Nothing terribly interesting to note on my trip around since I was really just concentrated on getting it over with as quickly as possible.

While I was walking, I was thinking about how I’d like to be a bit less matter-of-fact and a bit more deep-thoughts in my posts in my journal.  I’ve also been thinking for a while that I’d like to put in some childhood memories as they pop up.  So, I’ll start with this one….

I was telling Tracey recently how my mom would bring me roller-skating to Roller City (later, Skate City and, even later, a mattress warehouse, I think…) on the weekends when I was a kid.  She’d drive me up there and I remember pulling up into the parking lot and hearing the bass line from “Relax” by Frankie Goes to Hollywood pounding through the building’s walls.  We’d go in and mom would take up temporary residence in the snack bar area which had tables/benches.  I don’t remember much about what she’d do while she was there – don’t remember her bringing any books or anything to read, so maybe it was a people-watching event for her.  I had two pairs of skates – one was sort of cheap with blue boots with red and white stripes on the side.  For some reason, I think they were the boys’ version of some that Emily had which were white with blue and red stripes.  The other pair I had were these nice black leather skates with yellow wheels.  They were awesome, but the boots were really stiff and I had a helluva time trying to break them in and I would stick stuff down in there (toilet paper, perhaps?  Can’t remember…)  to try to keep them from causing blisters, but the tongue would always slide down the side for some reason.  It’s hard to say how long we’d stay each time because as a lot of people note, sense of time as a kid is vastly different from when you’re an adult.  But, we probably stayed a couple of hours or so.  I’d skate around the rink a few times and then come over to sit with mom to talk to her or rest for a few minutes.  Good times.  🙂

I finally put up the Walk the Line and Reaper movie posters that I framed.  I’m still pissed that the Hedwig one is not up there yet, but as the song says 2 out of 3 ain’t bad.  I’ve wanted framed movie posters on my walls for probably 10 years, so it’s awesome to finally have some up there!

I talked to Joyce for a little while and told her about my little coup against CRA.  She thought it was a hoot.

I have to work on getting my web site updated so I can start marketing.  God, it’s such a pain in the ass to update that friggin site and I super dread it!

Watched some TV and talked to Frank and Laina.  Tomorrow’s the big day for the Democratic primaries…Texas, Ohio, Vermont and Rhode Island.  I’m gonna be bitin’ my nails for sure come quittin’ time.

Tasks Accomplished: Washed dishes, put posters on the wall, invoiced for Southmere and Azure, trimmed cats’ nails (a couple of days ago, actually), went for a walk, did dumbbell exercises, posted new CFX blog entry

I’m Grateful For: Having more receivables than I thought I have, a productive day, that my back isn’t hurting as much today, furry critters to keep me company and a cozy bed to curl up in

I Got Angry: No real anger to speak of today – minor annoyances, but don’t wanna riddle my life’s story with trivial stuff!