Making money on the Net. Or not.
I was going to write this at 6 a.m. while I was awake after feeding Duncan. But then I went back to sleep.
I am putting my powers of procrastination to use.
I have this amazing talent that, when there’s something I don’t want to do for whatever reason, instead I spend my time doing other things that seem slightly less objectionable. In this way, I actually get stuff done. Eventually. And I even do the first thing that I was procrastinating about doing.
In this case, it’s writing queries for magazines. Instead of doing that, I’ve been exploring every other conceivable way of making a living without going into an office. Things I’ve learned so far:
Survey sites are scams.
I’ve been to a lot of them. Several hundred by now, probably. And I have yet to find one site that actually says it will pay me real money – not tokens that can presumably later be “cashed in” for real money – for my opinion.
Sure, a lot of people want to know a lot of demographic information about me and my family and our income and medical problems and how we feel about smoking in public. But I’m supposed to want to provide this info for the good of the country. Or something like that. I’m supposed to be honored that they care, that I can supposedly make their products better, and that I’ll be entered into a drawing to receive…something I probably don’t even need (unless it’s free groceries or gas! But no one actually gives that away).
I will not make a living playing games online.
Granted, I haven’t tried. But it doesn’t seem like a good idea. I can find other ways to waste time. 
I probably won’t make a living through Google’s AdSense program.
But I’m trying it out anyway. That’s the little box in the upper right corner that has a text ad in it. I might make it bigger. I might splash it across the page or down the side in a column. I don’t know yet. But I thought I’d try it out. This whole Pay Per Click thing intrigues me. Right now it’s not too obnoxious and I’m curious to see what kind of ads it pops up.
So that’s what I’ve been up to. And I’m now reduced to actually writing some queries (now that I’ve run out of ways to procrastinate). After lunch, of course.
Question of the month
It’s started again — the predictable question that everyone asks.
“When are you going back to work?”
And, unlike most of the other questions I get asked (is he sleeping through the night? do you like being a mum? are you breastfeeding? is he potty trained yet? oh wait, that’s not until next year), I find it particularly annoying, irksome and irritating. Why? Because I don’t want to think about it.
I don’t want to think about going back to work. I don’t want to think about leaving my son. I don’t want to think about being away from him just to earn a living building someone else’s dream. I don’t want to think about missing out on anything he might be doing — the latest development that week, that day, that moment. He’s growing so much and changing so much and stealing my heart more every day.
Well, he’s not stealing it. I’m gladly giving it away.
So every time someone asks that question, it reminds me how the precious time I have with him is winding down. How the day actually will come in just a few weeks when I’ll have to be at work at 8:30 a.m. and leaving him for an entire day.
I’m not OK with that.
I’ve mentioned that returning to work isn’t turning out as planned. I thought I’d be able to work half the time from home. I can’t do that now. If I’d known that several months ago, I would have made different plans. Because I always knew I didn’t want to put my baby in daycare and be away from him or her.
Now that it’s reality, I know it even more. I know how absolutely wrong it feels to me. And I’m not someone who can go so directly against her intution and heart. I can’t manage that kind of emotional denial. It’s one of the side-effects of becoming more self-aware.
And part of me thought that, maybe, once I actually had a baby to care for, I might enjoy the time away. I might enjoy the separation of mum-self and professional-self. Maybe even get a separate social-self in there too.
But I find I’ve rapidly become…well, not like that at all. And instead of becoming all consumed in being a mum (despite what this blog may lead you to believe!), I’m finding a balance between me as a person and me as a mum and carving out the time and space to keep developing my interests. The way I do that most of the time is just to bring Duncan with me. He sat through a 3-hour board meeting at church today. (OK, so he slept most of the time, woke up and ate, then got cuddled by various board members
I’ve found these weeks at home with him (8 1/2 of them so far) such an incredible blessing. Yet it seems bittersweet and cruel – to have this time to bond with your child, only to have to learn to detach and harden yourself to leaving him. I was thinking today as we cuddled on the porch together that these weeks have been such an amazing time and a gift, despite all the massive recovering from birth and adjusting to life with a baby. They rank right up there with the best weeks of my life. With going to France for my brother’s wedding and chilling in a cottage near the coast in Pornic. With my honeymoon in Cape Cod. With any adventure I’ve ever been on.
So I don’t want to think about that date in October. W-day. Or hear people comment on how it’s soon, or far, or whatever it is in their perception. Or how it won’t be that bad. Or whatever.
And I’ve decided that if my boss happens to read my blog and worries that I’m going to be leaving as soon as I can…well, any worry or weirdness or questions that might create aren’t as important as me knowing what I need to do for the wellbeing of my family and being honest about it. I am grateful for all that I have – including a job to go back to.
I am an attached parent. I am so in love with my son. I know I can’t make a living just by staying home and taking care of him (and having more!), but I know there’s a solution out there where I can do both.
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I watched the sunrise this morning. Through my office window.
Kev’s car malfunctioned yesterday on his way home from work, so I had the experience of getting to work at 5 a.m. this morning (when his shift starts). Rather than drive back home and go back to sleep for an hour or two I just came in myself. Amazingly I feel OK so far. Previous attempts at getting and staying up before 6 a.m. have left me feeling physically sick. Of course, it isn’t quite 7 a.m. yet.
Little D is currently readjusting himself (rearranging the furniture), somehow managing to simultaneously push against my bladder, right hip/pelvis and my ribs. He must be running out of room. No new pics – I keep forgetting to take them. I really do.
But here’s one from our baby shower at church in May. I was 31 weeks preggo then.
Something like that. (I’m 36 weeks now.)
There’s a reason I haven’t been putting up shots of my face. I may have that glow, but…wow… who is that fat-faced lady? And where did those massive boobs come from (you might not be able to get the full impact on this shot)? I bought nursing bras the other day…let’s just say I didn’t know they MADE that cup size before.