Sandra Tayler

Howard is out for the evening, the kids are in bed, and my brain is full of thoughts.

I mowed the lawn today. This is a major accomplishment because I had to coax an unused-for-5-years lawnmower to work before I could do it. The mower works well enough to get the job done, but it definitely has “personality”. I won’t be loaning it out anytime soon because the list of quirks would take too long to explain. (“Okay you can only get the bag off if you hold it right here and give it a kind of sideways jerk…”)

The good news is that having the lawn mowed transformed the yard. Suddenly I really wanted to be outside. Of course 75 degree temperatures might have had something to do with that as well. Since I couldn’t actually spend the whole day outside, I pulled the window screens down from the garage rafters, put them in all the windows, and then left the windows open so that I could let as much outside in as possible. The whole house felt brighter and happier than it has for months despite the fact that I didn’t get some key cleaning done. I did tour the yard a couple of times to enjoy all those blooming flowers that I planted as bulbs last fall. I’m particularly pleased with the daffodils. I purchase a lot of 25 daffodils “for naturalizing”. Essentially it was the odds and ends that didn’t get sold specifically by name. I had no idea what they would look like until they came up this spring. They are beautiful. I ended up with at least half a dozen different varieties. I’m so glad to have them and I’m looking forward to having them multiply over the years to come.

In addition to the daffodils I noticed all kinds of other yardwork that needs doing. Weeds have begun to grow. My garden plot is cleared, but not planted. Unfortunately tomorrow is the last day of beautiful weather before it gets cold and rainy for the rest of the week. Not that it matters really. I’m leaving town on Wednesday.

Urg. I’m leaving town Wednesday. Part of me has been trying to ignore the creeping approach of my trip to Penguicon in Michigan. I didn’t want to focus on it and give my brain time to fret over the whole leaving-the-children issue. The time for denial and repression is gone. Now I need to switch into high gear and get everything organized for the trip. Many of the concerns I had have been alleviated. Patches had gone clingy for awhile, but he demonstrated on a 2 hour shopping trip with Daddy that separation from Mommy was not traumatic. The measures I have taken to improve the Kiki/Gleek relationship seem to be working. At least they work enough that I’m not fearful that I’m leaving an unexploded bomb for my brother and his wife to deal with. Kiki is fairly motherly and I suspect that she’ll be right there to help if either Gleek or Patches gets lonesome for Mom.

A completely different aspect of the Penguicon trip is the anticipation for things that I’m going to get to do. I’ll get to dress nicely for 4 days in a row. With only myself to get ready, I’ll actually have time to fix my hair and match ear rings to clothing. This assumes of course that I don’t get so busy packing kids’ stuff that I forget to pack the ear rings and clothing. To be honest I haven’t even really looked at the Penguicon schedule to see what will be available. Howard is going to be there, so I’m set.

With the nicer weather lately, I’ve started hitting lots of garage sales. I look them up online at my local paper’s website. You never know what you’ll find at a garage sale and so I’ve been visiting lots in search of Christmas gifts. I want to be able to pull off Christmas for less than $200 and I can only do that if I shop now at garage sales. Most of what I see is junk, or at least nothing I’m willing to spend money on, but sometimes there is a gem. I keep hoping to run across a garage sale where someone is unloading old video games or gameboys, but it hasn’t happened yet. Yesterday morning I did manage to score a toddler bed for Patches.(Only $6!) I’d planned to just take his crib mattress and throw it on the floor for a bed when he was ready, but now I can loan the whole crib to my pregnant sister and give Patches this toddler bed. For now the new bed is in the basement because making a big change like that right before my trip wouldn’t be smart. In fact I doubt I’ll be ready to make the crib-to-bed switch until the end of May when the kids are out of school. …but that’s when the family trip to my parent’s house is scheduled…hmm. This will require further thought. No rush really. My sister isn’t due until September and I kind of like having Patches contained at night.

This morning there were a plethora of garage sales. I left the house to buy gas for the mower and ended up being gone for an hour because I kept driving past sales and stopped to see what was there. I didn’t find any big scores, but I’m slowly accumulating information which I’m using to figure out when a garage sale is worth the time and gas to find. I’m going to list them while they’re in my head so that I don’t forget:
Garage sales which advertise in the paper have more stuff than ones which just throw up a few signs on nearby corners.
Garage sales which run for two days have more stuff than sales which only run for one.
Multi-family sales tend to have more stuff.
Multi-family sales are sometimes annoying because you have to pay more than one person for individual items.
If the sale is more than 5 minutes away by car, it isn’t worth the time and gas.
I don’t have to get all the sales today, there will be more next week, and the one after, and the one after…
It never hurts to see if the seller is willing to accept a lower price.
If the price isn’t listed on the item ask “Would you take…” rather than “How much?”
No garage sale item is worth arguing over. If the seller isn’t willing to come down to a price I’m willing to pay, then I need to walk away.
Garage sales are best first thing in the morning before they have been picked over.
I don’t have to hit garage sales every week, I have all summer to slowly collect what I need.
Keep track of the kinds of things I’m looking for so I can make decisions quickly.
Take as few kids with me as I can possibly manage.
Be picky. Just because I have money with me, doesn’t mean I need to buy something.
Any time I’m considering buying something ask myself: “what will I use it for and where will I put it?”

Well lookit that. I seem to have emptied all the loose thoughts out of my head. Time to go to bed now.

Ever since Schlock Mercenary went independent on April 1st Howard has been extremely interested in watching his Google Adsense revenue. Any of you who have read the news tidbit posted about it at Penny Arcade will know that he is very happy with the revenue. Being linked from Penny Arcade gave us a readership spike yesterday with an accompanying Adsense revenue spike. This was happy.

As for me, I’m scared. I look at those wonderful numbers and think how wonderful it would be to have that money in my pocket RIGHT NOW. The more I stare at the numbers, the more they look like chickens; beautiful chickens that haven’t hatched yet out of eggs which are still in someone else’s basket.

I won’t really believe that advertising can produce regular revenue until I have a check in my hand.

I’ve had the last two days rearranged by a Mystery Puddle in my basement. The location and size of the puddle made it unlikely that any of the children was the culprit. It turns out that my water heaters were about 5 years overdue for failure and one of them finally figured it out. The good news is that we have enough cash on hand to have the heaters replaced. The bad news is that it cost us half a month’s worth of living expenses. For some reason the money isn’t stressing me today. Probably because the Mystery Puddle derailed my bookeeping session for two days in a row. Right now I’m too focused on making Kiki get along with Gleek, and preparing for Penguicon next week, to get stressed about a potential lack of money in June.

This past week has trompled me flat. Monday and Tuesday were completely absorbed by business stuff. By Tuesday night I realized that I hadn’t really looked at my kids once in 48 hours. Wednesday was completely scheduled from crawling out of bed earlier than usual to falling into bed at night. There were a few gaps in events, but I used them up by collapsing in a heap. Today I was away from the house all morning, spent one hour at home, then turned around to be gone most of the afternoon. I’ve done exactly zero laundry or housework this week and it really shows. I feel all messy and irritable. Of course not being able to squeeze a shower into the schedule might have something to do with that.

Tomorrow I’ve cleared the decks. I have no out of the house events. I’m going to stay home and catch up. At least in theory, there will probably be a nap involved. Maybe Howard and I will have a chance to do more than cross paths as well. I honestly do not know how people who work away from their houses manage.

Last night amidst the chaos which is supposed to be homework time and bedtime, I happened to glance downstairs. I saw Howard on his knees playing ring-around-the-rosy with Gleek and Patches. He was even using the right words instead of amusing-but-gross alternates which he tends to prefer. Gleek and Patches were revelling in the attention. A few minutes later when Howard declared “Daddy Fatigue” Gleek collapsed into tears. I went to go and rescue Howard, but Gleek pushed me away and went running to hug her daddy. That was a real first. Gleek has always been a mommy-for-comfort girl. The whole incident made me so glad for the life Howard and I are currently living. Howard now has time to play with kids and read them stories and do all the little things which add up so importantly in the lives of children.

Life is good.

I sat down and wrote a worst-case scenario for the business deal I was stressed over. It was really close to what our original plan was.

I also got up and walked away for awhile. I paid attention to kids and refocused myself into what really matters to me.

I feel much better now.

I have been head down in business concerns for two days. I’ve spent a lot of time, energy, and effort trying to help a friend hammer out a business/bookkeeping plan. We hammered and worked and then presented it to the people it is supposed to benefit. They panicked. They didn’t understand it. They felt like we were trying to take over. Not what I wanted to have happen. This reaction means somehow we failed to present it correctly.

Things have calmed down now and people are starting to talk politely, but I’m still residually stressed. Can’t I just go back to being a mommy and not being partially responsible for a potentially lucrative financial future for two families?

Last friday Howard took Schlock Mercenary off of the keenspot site. It was a step that we’ve needed to take for a long time. Now we don’t have to care when there is a keenspot internal political/ interpersonal mess. It is very tempting for me to explain in detail all the events which led to this necessity, but I could not do so without saying very unkind things about people whom I’ve never actually met. I’ve done a lot of thinking and I’ve decided that I am not going to say anything that could add to the mass of hard feelings that some of these people have for each other. Rudeness only adds to problems and keeping mum does me no harm at all.

I like the new site that Howard and Chalain have designed. I especially like how fast the archives load. I’m curious to see what the Google ad revenues will be like.

I’m also relived that we’re finally getting to the crisis in Howard’s current storyline. I’ve known that this story was coming for more than a year. I’ve been actively nervous about it since Schlocktoberfest 2004.