Nope I really did. I finally decided to move this blog.
At this point please follow www.chaosinthecountry.com to see our new home and please don't forget to update your blogrolls and bookmarks.
I am in the midst of moving the widgets and such so if anyone can offer help or advice, I would appreciate it!
See you soon!
I can't decide if I did something totally stupid or not.
Mostly it was stupid because it was something I don't do and don't want to create a habit of doing.
I walked away from a project. Mid project. I know this makes me look like an unreliable writer and unprofessional and I don't expect anyone to offer me any support (go ahead, I know it was wrong, I can take it) but I could not finish this project.
I think it came from my 1am deep talk with dear hubby last night. We were on the subject of the bills (nice cuddle talk right?) and I confessed to him that I don't think I can do it.
"What?" He asked me.
"I can't keep up with everything. I am going to get behind in school, the kids are running amok daily, I have umpteen articles due, and the house needs cleaned." Now we are not the kinds of parents who do everything for the kids. We expect and teach them to clean up after themselves and take care of their own messes. But I could feel myself becoming stressed over haggling with them about chores and schoolwork and take all my own work on my shoulders as well. Dear hubby has been helpful but he can't do my homework for me or write articles about insurance... Well, he probably could but he would look at me and laugh if I asked. Either way...
Today was my breaking point. I snapped.
Something inside me fell apart. I was trying to get through a project that was already overdue and I could hear the kids fighting. I could hear Bebe crying. What happened next was not a great moment in mommydom. I began screaming at all the kids (who were home for a snow day) that I had to work! I had homework! All I asked them to do was one chore each which were all easy chores and nothing they hadn't done before. Shorty was sent to his room, Bebe left the kitchen, Peanut was staring at me and the Bug was yelling back that that was enough. I lost my cool. I flipped my lid and the kids caught every bit of the brunt. There's no way to sugar coat it and say it nicely. I was embarrassed for my kids, I embarrassed myself and I scared them with my outburst.
And for what? Keyword rich bulk articles. None of it seemed worth it anymore. I realize that an overdue project was my own poor planning and time management but... My kids.
My dear hubby also spoke words to me last night that let me know he's behind me as much as he can be, and perhaps he understands and supports more than I originally thought... We talked about the type of work I was doing and payment. We talked about what I want to do. He listened to me come to tears about being unhappy about every aspect of trying to be everything and hold it all together.
One of my biggest worries is that I have two clients that pay monthly and one of them had not approved any of my work and I was in danger of no check for next month (then there is the fellow writer who still is trying to catch up on payment)... So I told him about a new client (the one with the project I just walked away from) and how although the money wasn't what I hoped (lower) they paid faster than waiting a month for payments. But I told him that it's not what I wanted to do but that we needed the money. He agreed but he asked how long before I lost it (Ummm like today?) and if wasn't what I wanted to be doing why was I? He told me that if I kept on the way I was, I would never be able to do what I wanted (which was go after the better paying writing gigs or write for myself) because I would always be chasing down those few dollars and afternoons wasted. He's right. I know he is.
So here I sit. Contemplating if I was stupid or not. Contemplating if I have burned a new bridge. Contemplating if I am wrecking my name before I even make one.
I probably won't make my bills for the month and I will probably have to ask for the deposit back to chaperone Bug's class trip to DC because I can't come up with the rest but hopefully my kids will never see me lose my mind again over keyword articles again.
I'm not blaming low payment, I am not blaming the clients. I'm not blaming the kids for being kids. I knew what I was taking on from the get go. I am blaming myself for biting off more than I could chew and for putting my stresses on my kids.
Either way, I doubt I will ever work with this client again and I can't blame them for it.
But it's clear I need to reevaluate where I want to go this year. I thought I knew but the steps I have taken (in lines of work) are so far from those goals. No matter the outcome, I feel like I failed today. I failed myself and my kids.
Ok I think I must be a very bad girl.
Apparently it is a bad thing to have blog links in your signature. It's advertising. Whether Parents.com tells you outright in their TOS or not (and let me tell you after searching it up one side and right back down the other, there is NO SECTION FOR ADVERTISING clearly marked out in the TOS).
But I guess if you put anything other than your little darlings pictures up in your signature your a bad parent and get a virtual slap on the wrists and your posts deleted.
WHATEVER. (Big Eye Roll)
Here's the problem: Because I listed my blogs in my signature I MUST BE SELLING SOMETHING. Ummm no, if I was selling something I would link to a website clearly listing my writing services and fees (which I don't even have yet).
Do I make money from my blogs? Occasionally but I do not promote my blogs for income (unless I am applying for a blogging gig). So I have to wonder what their definition of a blog that is primarily commercial in nature - That could make anyone who does product reviews, (like Mommy Know How), technology blogs about the latest gadgets (I know too many of those to start listing individual ones so think of your own favorites), or even a blog with adsense on it a commercial blog.
Originally I was sent an email yesterday letting me know that my links were considered advertising as per their TOS.
today I received another email letting me know that they are reviewing their policy as to how blog linking should be allowed and that my links will be allowed. Good for them! But still... it comes after giving me a terrible first impression of their site.
Whatever. (Again with the eye roll). I've never seen a forum (and I like to say I get around a little *wink*) that says NO BLOG LINKING IN YOUR SIGNATURE. Hell if that was the case, half the people who read this, would have never found me and I would have never found half of you. It also would make nearly all of the bloggers on the forums that I visit in some hot water as well since just about everyone has a link to their blog, whether it is monitized or not.
Here's my view on blog links in forum signatures: If you start making people remove blog links then you run the risk of pissing off a large part of your forum members. If you begin saying that people can have links as long as the blogs are not commercial in nature, then you have to start monitoring each blog link and figure out what makes a blog commercial.
I moderate three forums on cafemom.com and I allow blog links as well as links to wah business sites in signatures. I know I am only one person and I don't have the time to police everyone with links in their signature. Nor do I want to. As long as you aren't coming into the forums with requests to "check out my great money making opportunity", or to offer people a deal if they order from you, then I don't see a problem with linking in signatures. We are all adults (for the most part) and we can choose to check out the links or not.
I think that not allowing links in signatures sets communities up not to fail, but to leave out a potentially huge portion of the Internet community and hinder some great conversations.
Even though I can keep my links, I am not sure how I feel about the community and the way things were handled (starting with shoot first and ask questions later mentality deleting my post before warning me about their vague and changing rules).
What about you? How important is it to you to be able to link your sites (be it commercial or personal) to your forum signatures?
I'm in a mood, I will admit it but I wasn't until I got this handy email in my inbox:
Dear______ (someone who is not ME)
We are writing to let you know that a post authored by you on 1/27/08 has been removed from the Stay At Home Parents forum. The Parents.com Terms of Service state: "Your use of the sites is limited to personal, non-commercial purposes. Your commercial exploitation of the sites is strictly prohibited, unless we grant prior written permission." This statement includes messages posted on our forums, and signatures that might be used therein.
Because we value your membership and contributions to our community, we encourage you to continue posting within the Terms of Service. If you have any questions regarding this post removal, please don't hesitate to contact us at
The first thing that rubs me wrong is the "Dear____" portion which I left out. Reason is, Well, and I am embarrassed for the person who sent this communication... the receiver? Isn't even ME! The greeting began with "Dear (Insert screen name that isn't mine, HERE)"
At the end of the email, the sender included the supposed SPAM that I posted... Guess what? That doesn't belong to me either!
GAWD! I love it when people don't proof their emails before they send, or better yet, make sure the recipients are correct!
Better yet, My post really was deleted.
So here is how my post was sooo offensive that it was warranted the scary warning and being wrongly deleted.
I joined (no I don't mind telling you because right now I don't recommend this site) the forums at Parents.com I love the magazine, read it religiously and thought I would join the community there as well. My VERY FIRST POST (and might I add, DELETED POST) was to the SAHP parents group. A mom inquired about if there are wahp there and what they do. A number of people posted and some had the fabulous line that lets you know it's a scam (Hmmm like the one the sender attached to the email I got - OH yeah! It should have been deleted and was definitely SPAM but it wasn't MY SPAM.)
Back to the point: A mom before me posted about being a writer so I followed it up with my post about being a writer as well, how long I've been doing it and how I got started (a stringer for my local paper).
Do you see a reason to delete anywhere in there? I didn't. Must have been something I DIDN'T SAY.
I understand that the sender has me mixed up with an actual spammer but it irks me to NO END that she doesn't have the wherewithal to check what she is sending out and WHOM she is sending it to before hitting the SEND button.
It's too bad for her that I did notice and I let her know it.
It's also too bad for her that she CC'd a number of people as well when she sent me the email because I like to hit the "Reply All" button when people screw up and I catch it.
It wouldn't bother me so much if she didn't list the actual post in the email. It wouldn't have bothered me so much if she didn't "Dear____" and not even have it be ME she was greeting. But she did.
At this point, I am not impressed with the forums at Parents.com, nor am I impressed with the professionalism of their moderators.
Their welcome wagon can use some improvement.
If I did anything wrong, it was linking my blogs in my signature (Which oddly enough, or not so odd, was never mentioned).
Oh! Did I mention that I reposted to the same group defending the fact that my post was wrongly deleted (and why) - with the signature to THIS lil ol blog of mine? NO? Funny. I should have.
That is the question that the Irreverent Freelancer is asking this week. What made you want to freelance? It's not exactly for the weak stomach or those who crumble at criticism.
My reply was long winded and involved but it had to be.
There wasn't any one thing that brought me to this. I've always loved writing. I wrote for the school newspaper in high school as well as their fiction magazine, The Page. I honestly didn't think I would do much with writing once I got out of high school. Instead I looked into getting a teaching degree or becoming a social worker. However moving out of state, getting pregnant and then married (yes, in that order), and then going back to school taught me a few things:
At that point though, I was pretty undecided about what to do. I was an office temp for almost 9 years while I was raising the older 3 kids and I took off a year when Shorty was born. About 2years after that I did go to school for awhile and then we moved. I had just gotten a nice job (not temping) and was in school and doing well and we moved to the country. That was when I really didn't know what to do. I was out of work for awhile cause the commute was too long (or so I thought at the time) and the kids were still young, only one in school still... When I did find a new job I was there for almost two years and that's when the floor fell out from under me.
I was never going to get a better job without more school, I was pregnant and had to take an early maternity leave. I knew the odds of going back to work right away were slim because there were problems with my pacemaker. I started looking into working at home, at least while I was on FMLA. When my job was "given away" and the FMLA ran out and I was no closer to being allowed to go back to work, I fell back on what I knew. Stringing sentences together and telling a good story. I can write as well as I talk, if not better so I started submitting stuff. I found blogs about writers, (which are many of the writer blogs on my blogroll), job boards, and I just started absorbing information. Almost to the day that my FMLA ended, I had my first piece of work published online at whamzone.com. Then in March when I got "The Letter" that officially stated I had been terminated; that's when the freelance possibility really hit me. After that I sent in community news and articles to our local free paper and started making some extra money.
Once I was clear to return to work, it just didn't seem possible (or logical). I had three in school, a hubby that worked nights, a new baby still breastfeeding, and after school programs for the kids... How was I going to do 9-5 anymore and get them where they needed to be on time? Forget it. So I spent 2006 till now muddling my way through freelancing. Last year was really I began learning how things worked and by the end of 2007, I had some regular paying clients. I had made a few mistakes and learned so much from the people I have "met" that this seems like the best thing for me.
I don't know if I will ever meet my goal this year to be published in a national magazine but... you know what it is not really about seeing my name in gloss... well it is, but it's about this weird ability everyone tells me that I have to tell a story. It's about learning to control it and grow it.
It's about teaching my kids that this is a new world we live in, my mom could have never of done what I am doing - We simply didn't have the resources or capabilities that we have now. Going back to school is a bonus for me. I may never need that Media Writing Degree I am looking for, but if I have it and it teaches my kids a few things about family, perserverance, and hanging on to a dream or two then it was money well spent.
Aaahhh this got way off base from my original thoughts but who cares? You know why I am here now and maybe it makes sense to you and maybe I totally lost you. This post wasn't exactly for you anyway, it was more for me. To remind myself when I have piles of articles due and Math, and Philosphy homework breathing down my neck, how I got here.
And Why I stay.
