are several things that can stop you from working from home.   Let’s face it working from home is not always easy but being prepared will make it easier to handle if something comes up unexpectedly.

Illness of Family Members

When you are working from home most often you will not have someone to cover you, what will happen if you suddenly get a call from school that your child is sick?  I doubt that you will be able to just drop everything and go pick up junior which is what you will want to do.

I had this happen a lot when my daughter was ill at first.  You need to talk to a relative or friend that is close by and see if you can use them as a backup.  Can they pick up junior when they are sick?  Set up a family and friend support system now before it happens.  It will make it easier for you to continue to work and keep your focus where it needs to be.

Technical Issues

This is something that you never had to think about when you were working in the brick and mortar.

The technical department was always readily available to fix your computer.  From home that won’t be the case.  If your DSL goes out or your computer gets a virus, you need a plan in effect.  Have a technical person that you know is good one phone call away or plan on going somewhere else to use a computer if necessarily.

The most important thing in this case is that you communicate with your clients what is going on.  They need to be aware if some project is going to be running late.

Loneliness Issues

Working from home can be lonely.  You don’t have co-workers to share your stories with in person anymore.  You can overcome this by scheduling time in your work/life schedule so that you get that time with others.  Such as:  make play dates for your kids but work in the evenings.

People thinking that you should be able to help/volunteer

One of the very first things I found out about working from home was that now people assume that you can volunteer for everything or they can just stop in.  You have to be honest with your family and friends that you have to work to earn money that just because you work from home does not mean you have that free time.  Screen your calls and don’t take personal ones during your work hours.

Children aren’t sleeping when scheduled

You have the perfect schedule.  Everything is all set up but junior isn’t following with your program.  The baby is not sleeping.  You need to have someone on back up to take care of them.

These are just a few of the pitfalls of working at home.  Its how you deal with them that shows how competent you are to your client.  Be prepared.

Note:  Originally posted by me on Solo Smarts on 9/28/10

The definition of validation in The Free Dictionary.com is

val·i·date (vl-dt)
tr.v. val·i·dat·ed, val·i·dat·ing, val·i·dates
1. To declare or make legally valid.
2. To mark with an indication of official sanction.
3. To establish the soundness of; corroborate.

Since Jason came into the house, I have had everyone tell me that I treat him different than Faith. I couldn’t agree more but it wasn’t said in a nice fashion. I’m too strict on him. or I need to think about how he is reacting. or You should treat him like you do Faith. 

I’ve always explained that I have to treat him differently.  I have to treat him according to the fact that he did come through foster care.  That he did have three mothers and families before me.  That he doesn’t know the rules of the house.  That he is younger than Faith.

Jason came with preconceived rules.  He came with the rules from the three previous houses.  He didn’t know that our house would be different then theirs.  As I was in the parenting class, I learned that everyone’s house rules are probably different.  Some similar and some not so similar.  For instance, picking up toys is an requirement where someone with a two year old might have it as a rule.  My kids are older so their roles are different than that.

Unfortunately for me, because I was always told that I was treating him wrong.  Because people always said that I treated him differently than Faith (which I totally agree with but not in the negative sense they meant).  I felt guilty for the difference.  Sometimes it even made me feel like a bad mom because Jason doesn’t listen.

Jason has emotional problems and he needs a different kind of parenting.  He started seeing the therapist this week as I’ve mentioned before.  The therapist told me in the first meeting which I’m not counting as the first one that I have to treat him differently.  That you can not treat any two children the same.  He didn’t understand why another mother who has two children doesn’t know this.  He guarantees me that those children were treated differently. 

Do you know what this did for me?

It validated what I was doing with my son in my head.  Yes it gave me peace.   It gave me a sense of rightness.  That I was doing what was right by my child.

To those of you who hear the same thing.  I hope this helps.

When I signed on for Nanowrimo this month, I don’t think I really thought about how much time it would take away from the family.  My kids think I’m insane.  I’m on target with my word count at 17,224 words.  This is a really rough draft.  I would not want anyone to read it.  It is not ready for that.  I am positive that it will not be reading at the end of the month as well.  I have had characters fighting in my head for the limelight.  And after speaking with other writers, this is a good thing.  Though I thought I was going insane at first.

We have been really busy this week.  The kids were off school on Monday and Tuesday for some reason.  I believe that the polls were involved.  The kids have talked me into going to Newport Aquarium to see the fishes.  Yes, Jason said “fishes.  Mommy I want to see the fishes.”

First thing in the morning on Tuesday, we got up and got ready to go get their holiday pictures done.  Jason couldn’t sit still for most of them but we got them done.  When I went to pick them up, the Christmas cards were not ready to go so I would have to come back for them.  Things happen so I didn’t say anything bad.

We headed off to see Jason’s therapist for the first time he would be going into the office without me.  To say that I was nervous doesn’t even cover it.  I am a good mother but I still was thinking what if he proves that I’m not.  The things that go through your head when you think of a child talking about your family life is amazing.  Faith and I sat in the lobby and read or wrote in our journals.

When he came out, Jason was carrying two puppets that he made.  One was of my daughter and one of himself.  He told me that he and Adam (his therapist) made them together.  I asked Adam how it went.  He said that it was good.  This visit was just so that they could get to know each other.  All good, we headed out to the car where Jason tells me that he and Adam played with the puppets that he had made.

I said, “Did the puppets fight?”

Jason responded, “Well, I fight with Faith all the time so what do you think, mom?”

To which, I responded well then if you want to be a smartaleck I can just take us home instead of to the Newport Aquarium.”

“Mom, I’m sorry can we go to Newport Aquarium?  I’ll be good.”  he responded.

All in all, I was behind in word count right at that moment.  But nothing was going to give me more pleasure than seeing my kids having fun for the day.

I hope you all had a great day today!

photo credit: Biys || .S.Y.I.B.L.I.

Sometimes, when I look at my children, I say to myself ~~”Lillian, you should have remained a virgin.”

– Lillian Carter (mother of Jimmy Carter)

I had a rose named after me and I was very flattered. But I was not pleased to read the description in the catalog: “No good in a bed, but fine against a wall.”  — Eleanor Roosevelt

Last week, I stated this woman was the ugliest woman I had ever seen. I have since been visited by her sister, and now wish to withdraw that statement.  — Mark Twain

The secret of a good sermon is to have a good beginning and good ending; and to have the two as close together as possible.  — George Burns

Santa Claus has the right idea. Visit people only once a year.  — Victor Borge

Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.  — Mark Twain

By all means, marry. If you get a good wife, you’ll become happy; if you get  a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher.  — Socrates

I was married by a judge. I should have asked for a jury.  — Groucho Marx

My wife has a slight impediment in her speech. Every now and then she stops to breathe.  — Jimmy Durante

I have never hated a man enough to give his diamonds back.  — Zsa Zsa Gabor

Only Irish coffee provides in a single glass all four essential food groups: alcohol, caffeine, sugar and fat.  — Alex Levine

My luck is so bad that if I bought a cemetery, people would stop dying.  — Rodney Dangerfield

Money can’t buy you happiness .. but it does bring you a more pleasant form of misery.  — Spike Milligan

Hope this gives you a giggle or two.

This is an old picture but it shows him still drinking and being active.  I took Jason to the therapist today.  As I expected, it didn’t take the guy long to say “I think he has ADHD.  I was so not shocked..  This was not the shock of all shocks.  As we talked, he told me that he needed me to take him to his pediatrician and have him prescribe the medicine for ADHD since we have a lot of issues to deal with.

Jason has irrational bursts of anger.  He will get angry just about anything.  Then he goes into these pouting modes where he literally stops hearing anyone around.  Those drive me insane.

People, I am here to tell you that it is not easier as an older adult to raise a child like him.  You hear it all the time that you should wait to have kids.  People don’t consider that there are complications for women who are over 30 and trying to conceive.  Our bodies stop producing extra eggs and such.  But men don’t seem to have that problem.  They still are fertile myrtles.

What no one talks about is that the temperament that you  have as you age changes as well.  You can handle less of the screaming.. the brat attacks I like to call them.  I’m now myself on my own ADD medicines because I couldn’t cope with his ADHD.  Did you know that women that are pregnant or in college usually are diagnosed with ADD at that point in their lives?  I didn’t until the therapist told me so.  I was a little shocked.  It seems that girls/women are capable of coping at a lot younger age then men.  Go figure.

Back to Jason, he now has to go to his regular doctor for meds and he has to go to the therapist once a week to start the process of learning to cope with his anger.  I can’t imagine what he has to be angry about.  He only went through four mothers in his short six year life.  Wouldn’t you be mad too?

Have a great weekend.

Darth Vader and Gypsy Girll

Two old ladies were sitting on a park bench outside the local town hall where a flower show was in progress.

One leaned over and said, “Life is so darn boring.  We never have any fun anymore. For $5.00, I’d take my clothes off and streak through that stupid flower show!”

“You’re on!” said the other old lady, holding up a $ 5.00 bill.

The first fumbled her way out of her clothes and, completely naked, streaked through the front door of the flower show.

Waiting outside, her friend soon heard a huge commotion inside the hall, followed by loud applause.

The naked lady burst out through the door surrounded by a cheering crowd.

“What happened?” asked her waiting friend.

“I won 1st prize as Best Dried Arrangement” came the response.
photo credit: ojoadicto

Nano status:  I’m now up to 4,275 words.  Just 45,775 words to go.

My son brought home a pink slip from school the other day.  The pink slip in our school is kind of a behavior program.  They have the following colors:

Dark Green – For children that pretty much are good all day.  Also, means Goo Goo Goo

Light Green – For children that make act up once all day.  Also, means… Keep on going

Red – For children that are acting up quite a bit.  Also, means Stop look around switch your attitude back to Green

Yellow – For children that have acted up most of the day… Also, means Caution

Pink – For children that have really acted up all day… Also, means Report to the Principal.. This behavior includes fights, pushing, bullying, etc.

You can, also, work yourself back up the color scale.  So if you start out with a pink by the end of the day if you have been good all day you might make it back to light green.

So you can imagine when he brought home a pink, I was not happy about it.   I knew without a doubt that he had been bad the entire day.  He didn’t try to bring himself back up. 

He had talked back to the teacher.  Pushed a child.  Didn’t follow instructions.  And the list goes on.

I asked him quietly, “What did you do?”

“Mommy, I was good.  The other child pushed me.”

“How did he push you?”

“Mommy, I don’t know.” he responded.  He was not looking me in the eye.  Usually that means he’s fibbing.

“Ok, baby, let’s try to figure out how he did.  Was he behind you?”

“No, mommy, he was in front of me.” he said.

“Well, how did he push you then?”

“Mom, he pushed me with his butt going backwards.”

Now what do I say?  Do I tell him he’s lying to me?  Do I believe him?  Right now, I don’t think I do.  He’s been getting into a lot of trouble in the last three months.  He is now failing his school work and I am putting him in therapy.  Remember, he came through foster care to me.  I’m at a loss of what to do.  I can’t get him into therapy until next Friday.

The principal called me that night.  She explained the situation to me.  No teacher saw the fight.  It happened in the lunch room where I thought there was monitors but not in this moment.  They caught my son with his fist drawn back to punch the kid.  The other kid had grabbed his other hand and pulled it behind his back to stop him.  Both children were hysterical.

Unfortunately, the golden rule in my house is no fighting at school.  My son is grounded for a week.  Usually I do the six minutes when you are bad because of his age but when it affects his future in this degree I do ground.  Probably bad.

What would you do?

I have joined the NANOWRIMO this year.  It’s a month long writing project.  You are suppose to write 50,000 words (approximately 175 pages) from November 1st at midnight to November 30 at 11:59:59 p.m.  It’s suppose to be a fun long month of writing.  You are suppose to come to the month with maybe an idea but no writing done at all.

I came up with a storyline in my head but I haven’t written it yet.  I’ll be posting on how its going as well as many other things in my life going on.

If you are doing the Nanowrimo this year as well.. please let me know so that we can support each other.  I can’t wait to get started.  This is my first time and I’m excited and nervous at the same time.  It starts in about 3 hours.

photo credit: James Bowe

Happy Halloween!

I hope you have a great one!

With all the goblins and ghosts

Witches and Warlocks

Spiders and Bats

Keep Safe!

photo credit: woordenaar

I want to talk about bullying.  I’ve been facing it here at home with my first grader.  He has been being bullied by the next door neighbor girl who is in fifth grade.  I believed everything was cozy and friendly until I saw my lovely truancy officer that stays at the school at the end of our street.  He was parking there for like two hours waiting as I was to find out for my kid’s school bus.

I went down when I realized that he was talking with them.  Wondered what was up.  I was told that it had been reported to school that someone was picking on someone else.  The next door neighbor (the bully) said that it was probably the 4th grader who called about her.  They have been fighting on and off for years.  Then it was discussed that my son was throwing things… sticks and one day newspapers.  My son said that he would stop.  I said I would put an end to our end and we would wait up the road a little bit for the bus.  The next door neighbor asked if she could stay with us so that there would be no problems.  Problem solved, right?

Unfortunately, no it wasn’t.  The next morning the officer was out there to talk to the kids that had not been present.  As they talked, it was discussed again about my son’s being picked on not only by my daughter but the next door neighbor.

As soon as the bus pulled away, the neighborhood bus mom came out.  I call her that because she lives at the end of the street where the bus stop is.  She told me that the kids had been complaining to her because the fifth grader had been picking on my son.  She, also, told me that my daughter was doing so as well.

Yes, I agree my son did have some involvement in this debacle.  But he is a first grader and she is in fifth grade.  She knows better.  He picked up a newspaper one day and threw it.  The newspaper hit her.  I don’t know if this was deliberate or not.  What we now know though is that she picked up the newspaper and proceeded to beat my son with it.    Two adults had to call her off of him.  They screamed it at her and were on the way to stop it.

When I found out all of this, I decided that my kids would no longer ride the bus.  Something of which they both love.  My son started acting up in the school.  I’m still trying to resolve this.

Did you know that in most states that there are bullying laws now?  Our school is legally responsible for that bus stop when it is a bus stop.  I talked with the counselor.  I talked with the officer and it finally came down to the fact that we are next door neighbors.  It did involve my daughter as well.  They don’t believe that this situation is in their hands.  I am fighting daily to find better solutions for my son.

Bullies can come in all shapes and sizes. They are basically looking to make themselves feel better by taking advantage of another student. They will typically taunt and tease their target before they begin to physically hurt them. It usually starts out small and develops into something worse if you do not catch it.

Some warning signs that your child might be being bullied are:

• Damaged or missing items such as clothing, books, etc.
• Unexplained injuries or bruises
• Complains of feeling sick or stomach aches constantly
• Has bad dreams frequently
• Changes their eating habits
• Hurt themselves
• Is afraid to participate in things with other peers
• Is afraid to ride the bus
• Does poorly in school
• Appears sad, moody or depressed

Some things that you can do to help your child are:

• Talk with your child about what is going on. Don’t let them keep it bottled up. Do not force them to share though.
• Do not try to get even with the child’s parents. Take the necessary steps to get it correctly. Try to talk to the officials at school.
• Talk with your child about how to react to bullies. They tend to look for kids that get upset about it. Let them know its ok to laugh it off and walk away. Teach them to talk with you after.
• Support your child. I can not stress that enough. Make sure that your child is aware that you are behind them. That you will take steps to protect them.
• Find something that your child is good at and praise them. It must be sincere or they will know.
• If you can remove the situation that it happens in, do so. For instance, I am now taking my children to school to avoid the child that is picking on my son. This is helping to make my child feel secure in his world again.

Please do not take this as a small matter; it can affect your child’s life for the rest of time. Talk with your child. Get them professional help. Do not forget to speak to the school and see what the next steps are.

P.s.  I will talking about my daughter’s involvement later on.  There is more to it then just siblings.

The last post I posted was on August 28 which means that I have been fighting to get my blog back online for that long with technical difficulties.  I have so much to talk about and no blog.  I have wanted to write.  Now the irony if you look back the last post that I posted was about what would you do if you were invisible!!  Of all things and then I went invisible.  I am back.

I will be writing again.  I feel like a newborn baby that wants to write and write and write.  So life has been going on even though I haven’t been able to do a thing.  By now, I am sure that GoDaddy despises hearing when I am calling.  Did I mention that I am not technical at all?  I am not.  I mean it.

See you tomorrow.

If you were invisible, where would you go?  I was thinking about this question the other day.  If I was invisible, I would go to my kid’s school.  I’d go to each of their rooms and simply watch them.  I love watching my kids when they don’t realize I’m doing so.  Do you think they would get the sense that I was there?  They always tell me I have eyes in the back of my head.  I’d like to see and hear what they say about their homelife.  Then again would I?

I’d go to work with my husband to see what he actually did.  I’d be bored to tears but I’d like to know.  He can’t really tell me.  I don’t get it.  Alright maybe I don’t want to go get it.  But it would be interesting to see it.  With my luck, he’d probably end up working in a sewer that day.

I’d go check on family members… Honestly I don’t think it would be that fun.  But then I’d be game.  If you are invisible, you would miss out on all the hugs and kisses.  That would be a sad day for me.

 
photo credit: B Rosen

photo credit: Big C Harvey

I spoke with my doctor this week about my health.  I’m 46 years old.  I’m overweight, my memory is shot and my knees are beginning to hurt.  All in all I’m not that unhealthy.  Just normal wear and tear.  Well I could lose the weight and hope to start to remember better.

I have to take medicine once a  month that is required for me to see the doctor so I asked him… to make me accountable to him to lose weight.  Look I’ve tried it all.  I’ve done most of the diets.  I’ve worked out.  I’ve done Curves.  Nothing worked for me.  I think if I have to show my face to my doctor once a month… Maybe just maybe it will work.

First thing he wants me to do is check out Weight Watchers.com and LiveStrong.com.  Obviously I knew about Weight Watchers.  Who doesn’t.  What I didn’t know is that there is a free section to it.  I love the article they have about 24 ways to add excitement to your life like taking an evening class, find a blast from your past, spice up your social life.  They have some great recipes and great work out suggestions.

Now I didn’t know about LiveStrong.com.  I checked it out on his suggestion.  I found out for me to lose 1 pound a week, my calorie intake per day should be 1701 calories.  Wow that’s a lot of calories.  Now I always knew that you should get a good night sleep but I didn’t understand the reasoning why.  They have an article that explains it well, go here.  They have exercises as well.  Light ones to start out which I totally have to have.

He is also having me keep a food diary until I return to his office.  So far I absolutely hate that.  I am always forgetting to write in it.

What are you doing for your weight?  Are you on a regiment or just winging it?