Weight lost, weight gained

As I lay writhing in pain on the hospital bed, a nurse leaned over and listened to my heart. She looked at me quizzically and said,

“Do you workout?” My friend, who had driven me to the ER, responded.

“Yes, she does work out. Quite a bit, actually.”

“I can tell,” said the nurse. “You have a very strong, low heart rate.”

Through the intense pain, which easily rivaled labor pains but without the in-between contraction reprieve, I felt a glimmer of pride. I was an exerciser. I was lean. I could run three miles without breaking a sweat. I looked better-than-average in my one-piece Lands End bathing suit with swim skirt. I weighed almost as much as I did when I was first married, ten years and four children ago.

After they sliced me open and took out my gallbladder, I couldn’t go back to the gym for six weeks. (Something about my stitches ripping open or me hurting myself or some other such post-operation silliness.) Six weeks went by. I got the okay to resume my routine. Eight weeks went by. Ten weeks. Three months. Six months.

I feel like I now finally understand Einstein’s law of energy: matter can neither be created nor destroyed. The pounds I lost slowly came wandering back from their vacations in cool places like Thailand and Hawaii and re-adhered themselves to my stomach and upper-arms. It’s like they never even left. They were perturbed, however, when I tried to squeeze them into the new size four pants I had purchased last March in their absence. They require more room than that. A lot more room.

Last night, things got bad. We had a Super Bowl party and for about an hour, I posted myself right next to the bean dip. During the course of the evening, I ate guacamole, buffalo chicken wing dip, pizza, cake, brownies, and munched on one piece of celery. Just one.

I don’t even know who won the stupid game.

It is time to get my increasingly rotund derriere back to the gym.

This February, I am committed to getting back into a workout routine. I am also committed to giving up oatmeal cream pies for breakfast and my kids’ leftover peanut butter and jellies for lunch. I am committed to discontinuing the use of my treadmill as a storage rack and repurposing it as an exercise machine. I did it once; I can do it again. Finally, I am committed to making sure those pounds stay overseas this time.

(I don’t even want a postcard.)

Winter Songs

It is still winter.

This is how depressed I am: I have been teaching myself Jeff Buckley’s morose song “Hallelujah” on the guitar. Or rather, I was.

It was going swimmingly. I was strumming and singing along, probably as well as KD Lang, when suddenly, at the end of the third verse, the A-string broke during “it’s a cold and it’s a broken hallelujah.”

Irony is never lost on me.

John came home to find me playing and singing- I had shifted from guitar to still out-of-tune piano- while the kids ran amuck in the kitchen.

John knew it had been a rotten week for me. (When it’s a good week, he finds me playing rousing Friday-evening tunes like “The Phantom of the Opera,” the theme to Tommy, or “Joy to the World” by 3-Dog Night.) He offered to go out and get new guitar strings THIS VERY NIGHT if that would make me happy.

I responded by crooning the words to “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You.”

(I guess I’m not THAT depressed. When it gets really bad, I sniff at John while singing “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers”… both the Neil Diamond and Barbara Streisand parts. Still, I’m really, really looking forward to spring.)

Sucker-punched

The twins are turning 3 on the 20th. They are in the process of transitioning from county services to being under the supervision of the school district. Their overall development needed to be assessed to determine what services they would continue to receive, and so two speech and development pathologists came to my house yesterday morning. They were early. I didn’t get to vacuum the living room.

The twins were fairly cooperative. It took about two hours to test them and ask me about a gazillion questions. The pathologists quickly came up with their assessments of my children.

They are going to recommend that Daniel continues the speech therapy he has now. Daniel is doing a lot more talking, but has trouble articulating words. He’s also still drooling. He’s moderately behind in terms of how many words he should be using, but overall, they weren’t very concerned. They were pleased about the progress he had made in the past year.

They were baffled by Ella. Apparently, Ella did really really well in various parts of the testing. She relates to the world visually, is great with spatial concepts and has an above-average understanding as to how things work.

Ella did poorly in the whole talking and understanding what people are saying bit. The pathologist pointed out a lot of things I had noticed, but hadn’t really dwelled upon.

Ella mimics. Often she says the last word I say in the form of a question. The few sentences she puts together are scripted: usually from something I or another person says often or something she has heard on television. The rest of the “words” she says are complete nonsense, what speech therapists refer to as “jargon.” Apparently, she should have dropped the jargon a long time ago. She rarely follows direction, which I attributed to her “silliness.” (I ask her to put her shoes away. She stares at me and smiles.)

On the other hand, she is social. She loves hugs and kisses and is happy to be in the company of others. She plays with her brothers (when they let her) and enjoys being read to. She makes eye-contact and smiles all of the time.

The pathologists said things like “processing disorder,” “need a full evaluation from a doctor who specializes in these things,” “huge discrepancy between her abilities,” “let’s see if we can find a why behind the matter,” and “autism spectrum disorder.”

They were interested in her preoccupation with music and her spinning, and asked about any obsessive behaviors she has. They jotted down notes when I mentioned that she doesn’t budge when the television is on, and that she plays with her toy computer for long periods of time. They noted how often she counted objects.

Ella doesn’t exhibit any of those symptoms that autistic people in television shows have: she doesn’t stack blocks or revert into herself nor does she require a rigid schedule. She is excessively happy, bubbly, exuberant, and is seemingly as passionate about life as a two-year old could be.

On the other hand, she often screams like a banshee when things don’t go her way. Much of the time she won’t stop screaming unless I put the television on, which has a calming effect on her.

I started crying when the pathologists were explaining all of the symptoms of autism that Ella didn’t exhibit: impaired social interaction, excessive repetitive behaviors, and they told me lots of kids with autism have food allergies.

I cried because I was planning to talk to the doctor about the possibility of Ella having a food allergy- she gets terrible stomach problems after she eats certain foods.

It’s been over 24 hours since they left. I stopped shaking three hours after they drove off.

Ella has already been put through a whole rigamarole with her heart and kidneys and the whole genetic testing thing to make sure she didn’t have some weird disorder.

Of course, I’ve spent the past day scrutinizing her behavior and browsing through information about speech delays and autism. Ella just doesn’t quite fit the mold. I don’t buy it. I’m 80% confident that she is going to make great strides in language development in the next year and that the discrepancy between her abilities will narrow and she will just be considered “brilliant.” Silly… but brilliant.

On the other hand, there are some odd things about Ella. She often exhibits asymmetrical facial features, speaks in a sing-song voice, and we have often joked that she lives in her own happy little world.

Either way, it’s okay. It could not possibly change the way I feel about her. Sometimes John and I get her out of her crib at night if we hear her singing to herself, just to have time alone with her, because she’s such a delightful little person.

I will do whatever it takes to make sure she gets whatever treatment or therapy she needs, but if there is something wrong, I promise not to freak out, not to blame vaccines, not to become obsessed with trying to fix her. I will pray and I will trust in God’s plan for my little sprite.

This is all, of course, after I get over this feeling of being sucker-punched in the gut.

Make Money Writing 101

It’s hard to gauge how well I am doing as a freelance writer. The thing is, I’m not a pushy person. It is not in my nature. I have a hard time “selling” myself. (Not because I don’t think I’m great- clearly I’m awesome- but because I’m petrified of “annoying people.” I am SHY, world. The world does not accommodate shy people, but that’s a topic for another blog post.)

Just the same, I’ve been freelancing now for almost a year and I’m generally pleased with how far I’ve come. I have enough regular clients that I don’t have to search out new work, unless I really want it. I have gained one excellent client through a referral and am really actually enjoying the research and writing (for the most part) I am assigned.

I’ve slowly upped my pay-rate and have turned down many, many potential clients whose pay-rates were too low (too low even for illegal immigrant laborers!) No, I will not write you a 500 word article for $1.00. One guy came back and said… okay, okay. $1.50. I took it. (No, not really.)

Several people have contacted me wondering how they might break into the freelance writing biz. It’s actually not that difficult. As with any home business, it just takes time to set up. For those looking into getting started, either as a career possibility or just for fun, here is Holly’s Make Money Writing 101 course for the interested.

First you have to KNOW what you want to write about. Being a housewife/mother with a degree in English, I felt like my potential writing topics were limited. However, there is a market out there for parenting/ family-life related articles. I’ve also found a niche in health-related and fitness topics, arts-and-crafts topics (which is kind of a stretch for me) and literary topics. (My favorite current job is writing short blurbs for the backs of classic books-on-tape.)

The good news: there is a market for nearly any kind of writer. The bad news is that it’s easy to get distracted and try and create too many “niches” for yourself. Freelance writers who specialize in a particular niche are more desirable than the jack-of-all-trades writer. Professional resume writers, academic writers, and lyricists who have experience and success in their fields can expect to be paid well. Figure out what you want to write about, find out where your market is, and take the time to get really good at what you do. It will take a good year to establish your “business” and longer to make decent money.

People will pay you for:
• Blog writing
• Magazine articles (print and online)
• Book reviews
• Newsletters
• Sales letters
• Song lyrics
• Press releases
• Web copy
• Brochures
• Manuals
• Resumes
• Greeting Cards
• Academic papers
• Ghostwriting
• Grants
• Scripts
• Fliers
• Technical writing
• Interviews
• Biographies

People will also pay you to proofread, edit, and will pay for consulting services.

If you are talented, dedicated, and headstrong, you can make money writing e-books, your own relevant blog (NOT A FAMILY LIFE, PERSONAL BLOG LIKE MINE!!!), or one of those antiquated dusty things with bindings that people used to peruse through before the internet. Regular books, I think they’re called.

E-books are taking off. Lots of non-fiction, informational books are being published as e-books and can be viewed on the computer or on ebook readers like the Kindle, the SONY Reader, or Apple’s brand new iPad.

Making a LIVING as a freelance writer requires intense marketing skills, which I greatly lack and hope to improve upon this coming year.

Where do you find your first writing gig? They don’t just fall on your lap, unfortunately. You have to be proactive.

I have found most all of my work online. Proactive people seek out jobs. They send query letters to various magazines or they send informational letters about themselves to local businesses advertising their services. A lot of writers find business by advertising themselves on Craig’s List. I have a “professional” website now that will probably never land me a new client, but it is useful: I use it as a reference when I apply for a job.

Here’s a list of online resources where you can find websites that pay, job markets, and writing contests and informational articles. This has been a work in progress and I may add more later.

Sites where you can bid on jobs: There are a number of sites where you can sign up as a freelancer (writing, graphic design, etc.) and bid on writing jobs. The lowest bid, of course, doesn’t necessarily win. Buyers look to get cheap, high-quality writing. You are competing against people from all over the globe, some perfectly happy to write for $2.00 an hour. However, sometimes, there’s a great job on these sites that pays well. It just takes time to sort through the slave-labor jobs.

Elance.com
Guru.com
Odesk.com
Freelancewriting.com
Getafreelancer.com
Ifreelance.com
Scriptlance.com

You can join some of these sites for free while others require a monthly fee. The sites usually take a percentage of the buyer-provider transaction, something to take in mind when you are bidding! I found my first regular client on Odesk.com. I’ve found that Elance.com seems to have the best paying buyers.

Content providers: There are a number of sites that pay for and then distribute content on the web. I’ve already written about my experience with Examiner.com. The problem with these sites is that the quality of writing can be low because there are few to no editorial guidelines, and the pay is weak. However, a lot of people use the sites to network or just to write about something they actually care about. Here are the most common content sites:

Associatedpress.com
Suite101.com
Examiner.com
http://www.helium.com/
DemandStudios.com
eHow.com
Triond.com
Life123.com
Orato.com
HubPages.com
Xomba.com
Livestrong.com
Firehow.com
Constant-content.com
Textbroker.com
Aci-plus.com: (Pays for academic papers.)

A lot of these sites are pay-per-click sites, meaning that you get paid according to how many people actually take a look, no matter how long, at your article. Some provide revenue-sharing, which means that you could make decent money on an article over a long period of time. Demand Studios pays a flat fee of $7.50 or $15.00 for an article and it also offers a revenue-sharing option. (For a content site, that’s not too bad, actually.)

Constant-Content has fairly stringent editorial guidelines and reviews each individual article. You can get paid up to $75.00 for selling full-rights to your article. I wrote a 600 word article on adult acne (something I happened to be researching for personal reasons at the time-sigh) and sold it within two days for $30.00. I’ve only bothered with Demand Studios, Constant-Content, and Textbroker. You have to really comb through Textbroker to find good-paying jobs. I like that I can make $30.00 in an hour at Demand Studios if I really put my mind to it. (Typing super fast helps.)

Making money on content sites requires some SEO (search engine optimization) skills, marketing knowledge, and choosing topics that sell. For instance, the #1 Examiner on Examiner.com is the Twilight Examiner. Twilight as in Edward and Bella. A parenting blog marketed to a local audience just wasn’t gonna make me a lot of money, even if I spent hours promoting it. However, these sites are great for someone who wants to write about something they care about while making some grocery money.

(Read this article for an interesting look at content-mill websites: “I Was Sucked into Content Mill Writing by Anonymous.”)

Writing Markets: There are a ton of free writing markets on the web. Good jobs get taken fast, so I subscribe to various ezines make sure I’m on top of the job market. Here's a small sample of the best markets out there:


Worldwide Freelance Writer: Sign up for their newsletter and receive an e-book with 25 writing markets that pay at least .25/word.
Writer Gazette: Krista Barrett’s freelance writing site is a Writer’s Digest top writing site. Krista is just a normal girl who shares a lot of information for free. Sign up for her weekly newsletter and check out her job board and contest listings.
Mediabistro.com: Their job site lists freelance opportunities and full-time job listings for writers/ journalists/ editors. It also has links that tell you how to pitch ideas to specific magazines like Self, Redbook, and Sports Illustrated.
Writer’s Market: 5.99/month will get you a listing to pretty much every writer’s market out there. Or buy the book; it comes out once a year. The “paid services” section online has hundreds of free listings of contests, conferences, and other useful stuff.


Fiction and poetry writers:

Duotrope’s Digest: Has over 2800 poetry and fiction markets.
Poets and Writers Magazine: Literary markets, contests, grants, job listings
Writer’s Digest: Writer’s markets, competitions, and tons of useful articles for writers.
Funds For Writers: Exactly what it sounds like.

Old fashioned methods are still really great ways to find freelance writing gigs. Again, it takes some persistence and personal drive.

• Cold call local businesses, organizations, educational institutions and see if they are in need of someone to write marketing materials/ brochures, etc.
• Check out the no-name pamphlets and/or magazines in your doctor’s office. Someone writes those inspirational stories of people who live with rheumatoid arthritis or those informational articles about what vitamins will make your hair look shiny.
• Contact your local newspaper with story ideas. (Small-town newspapers, too!) Write articles for local magazines; those free circulations you grab at the supermarket are always looking for quality freelancers.
• Know someone famous? Are you tenacious enough to try and get in contact with someone famous? Interviews are ALWAYS marketable. In fact, you can probably shop a good interview around and get a great price.
• I was audacious enough to contact a business owner and point out the many spelling and grammatical flaws in their promising website. I offered to revamp the whole thing. Surprisingly, he agreed! We are working out a contract.
• There’s a market out there for book reviewers. You can always get a free book in the deal, but if you are confident enough, you can get paid well to review an author’s book. Often, they require that you post a review on several different sites. Of course, it takes time to actually read the book. With the rise of e-books, more and more authors are desperate to find third-parties to market their material.

Other interesting places to visit:

The Beginner’s Guide to Freelance Writing

6 Sites that Pay You for Writing Book Reviews

The Answer Factory: Demand Media and the Fast, Disposable, and Profitable as Hell Media Model

5 Tips for Marketing Your Freelance Writing Business

This past year, I have done a lot of technical writing, a lot of fitness writing, some reviews, a lot of website copy, and I just found out a short essay was accepted to be published in an anthology. I recently submitted a short story to a literary magazine. I hope to have time to write more fiction this year, but have also promised the official husband of Holly Goes Lightly that I will write my thesis proposal and get the damn thing done with. Argh. It just feels like such a waste of time and money… but I could use the actual degree.

This year, I would also like to try and submit to actual publications instead of doing so much ghostwriting. Again, this takes me being proactive, and that just seems so… exhausting. I am also trying to network with an online community of writers to garner support and to share ideas. Which brings me to to my question, dost thou haveth ideas to shareth?

To fellow writers: please use comments to suggest other great ways for freelancers to make money writing and to share your writing goals for the year. Holly especially needs marketing advice!

Lord Beer Me Strength

I'm not a drinking person. And it's not because of religious reasons. It's because I am a recovering alcoholic.

No, I'm not a recovering alcoholic, but this is what I tell people when they pressure me to have a drink.

"Come on!" they say. "You're out, away from the kids! Just have a beer."

"No thanks," I say.

"Come on... loosen up! One drink won't hurt you!"

"No- I'm good with my Sprite."

"Let me get you something. A cocktail? An appletini, perhaps?"

"I really don't drink. I'm a recovering alcoholic."

And they shut up and leave me alone EVERY TIME.

I'm such a wuss. I hate the taste of alcohol. I don't care if it's a glass of expensive red wine or a screwdriver... it all tastes what I imagine the Ajax stored beneath my sink would taste like. Smiling while trying really really hard not to grimace as I sip a glass of wine is not my idea of a party. Plus, I don't do well when I am "affected." There is too much silliness and I flirt too much. This pisses off the official husband of Holly Goes Lightly.

But today- today I am contemplating making myself several margaritas after the kids fall asleep and getting good and silly because this has been the morning from down under. (The fiery place- not Australia.)

A couple of work projects have kept me from my housework the past week-and-a-half. The laundry has especially been neglected. I was seriously contemplating just throwing it all out and starting over again but have since reconsidered and am now in the process of washing my seventh load. Two more to go, I think. (There was bed-wetting last night... that hasn't helped things.)

This morning, I set the twins up at the table with crayons and some coloring books and sat myself down a room away to fold the laundry. All was calm. The twins jabbered away for a while. Then, I heard them get down from the table. They scurried up the stairs, quietly, which is always a bad sign. I got up to see what they were up to and found a mess of marker stains all over the table and other parts of the kitchen.

When the twins evacuated the kitchen, they left behind a blue trail:

Kitchen floor.


Stair railing.

One of several newly decorated walls.

I found them in the upstairs bathroom, where they had decided to clean themselves up. They had hauled their wipes to the sink and were busily ridding themselves of the blue on their faces and hands.

I almost blew a gasket, but took a deep breath and decided (instead of screaming at them) to grab the camera and see what they did next. I would not have been such a cool cucumber had the markers not been of the washable variety.

After they felt they were sufficiently clean, they went downstairs and began wiping down the mess. It was all very reminiscent of Beatrix Potter's "The Tale of Two Bad Mice," which we had read the other day:

Later on, when I was putting clothes away upstairs (it's such a long process, the laundry), Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum took the handsoap off of the counter and put copious amounts of it in their hair. So I gave them a bath.

They'll probably need another one before the day is through.

MLK and Avatards

Caleb commemorated Martin Luther King Day the other week by writing a short blurb about the civil rights leader. Here is his original blurb and my translation, edited for spelling but not content:

About Martin. Martin had a dream. He had a speech. He made black and white people get treated the same. Someone shot him.

And that’s a child’s ironic view of Dr. King’s life in a nutshell.

***

This past weekend, I read something… disturbing. This comes from the Daily News: Your New York:

“The most attractive part of the movie is the way it whisks you away to a new world, which is hard to do these days with so many media outlets competing for our attention,” says Paul Levinson, professor of communication and media studies at Fordham University. “It really is moviemaking at its best. For 2½ hours, audiences are transported to a strange, exciting place that does not exist around them.”

In fact, some “Avatar” fans, better known as “Avatards,” have become so immersed in the movie that they suffer from withdrawal when it ends.

Chat rooms and fan forums have been full of testimonials from those who say they felt depressed and even thought of suicide after seeing the film, due to a longing for the beauty of the fictional planet Pandora.

Now, I have yet to see this film. John and I opted to see Sherlock Holmes over Avatar this past weekend. And I could almost understand how someone could become depressed to the point of considering taking their own life after viewing, say The Road or The Lovely Bones or Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel.

Have you seen Avatar? And if so, have you since experienced depression and thoughts of suicide? If this be the case, I implore you to get help. Seriously. You need help. Or maybe a trip to the Adirondacks.

Avatards????

Thoughts

Last night, at around 9:00sh, Ben came downstairs to announce that Caleb was “having sad thoughts” again. This is the third such instance in just as many weeks. Caleb thinks of something that makes him cry and Ben comes down to tell us about it.

First,Caleb imagined he got lost somewhere and couldn’t find me. He sobbed as he said, “I looked and looked and I couldn’t find you anywhere.” I comforted him and gave him some helpful strategies should he ever get lost (go tell another mommy you are lost- find a policeman- stay in one spot until I find you) and assured him I would always find him. Then, we prayed and he was seemingly calmer and went to sleep within fifteen minutes.

On Tuesday, Caleb dropped his magic wand down my father’s heating vent. Yes, Caleb carries a magic wand around with him. Doesn’t your child? (It was a part of a magic trick birthday present package.) The heating vent became a source of great curiosity. Where did the vent go? Why couldn’t we get stuff out of the furnace? Is there really a fire down there? Naturally, that evening he sobbed as he thought about the ever-so likely scenario that he gets caught inside the vent. Apparently, in his mind, he called and called for me and I never showed up. So, we had a long conversation about heating duct systems. And about how superb my hearing is.

Last night, Caleb had bad thoughts about Ben being engulfed by lava. Because there are so many volcanoes around here that could erupt at any moment. John handled that one.

Though I was annoyed, as it was time to get my cuddle on and watch The Office with John, I’m a little embarrassed because I do the same thing. There has been many a night when I have let my mind get away from me, nights where I imagine horrible scenarios and end up crying myself to sleep. Occasionally John hears me and wakes up.

“What’s wrong?” he’ll ask.

“I was imagining that I had a horrible disease and only had a month to live and I was thinking about all the things I wanted to say to the kids. Look…” (I hold up my journal) “I started to write them down.” (Further sobbing.) “THEY NEED ME!”

John usually responds with something like, “For the love of God, woman,” and rolls over and goes back to sleep. Now, when Caleb thinks about the less likely event of a volcano erupting in Rochester and taking out Ben, he gets a nice little geography lesson and compassionate words. God help John if I ever DO get a horrible disease.

Lately, at night, I’ve been thinking about all of the things that need to get done and all of the things I want to get done. Then, I chastise myself for spending too much time doing frivolous things, like obsessively finishing my jigsaw puzzle, instead of actual work. Here I am again, procrastinating by writing this blog post instead of working.

When I started the blog, I didn’t know how often I’d post or what I wanted to do with it. I will have had this blog for a year in April, and I’m seriously contemplating ending it then. I know, I know, what will you do without my whining and complaining to read on a weekly basis? Still, blogging for a year seems like a cool thing to have done. It’s just something I’m thinking about. I’ve been encouraged to continue, but if I do, I will still face the same weird and often conflicting challenges every time I sit down to write something, like:

1) I have nothing of importance to say.
2) I have so much to say.
3) I don’t want to offend anyone. Then they might not like me. And that would be the worst.
4) How can I be honest without being overly-revealing, crude, or offensive?
5) My blog has no compass. Is it a mommy blog? Do I want it to be pigeonholed as a mommy blog?
6) Is my personal faith revealed enough in my writing?
7) Isn’t John Edwards the worst? I intensely dislike that man.
8) I don’t feel like promoting my blog anymore. I don’t even want to post it on Facebook. It makes me feel- self-promoting.
9) I spend way too much obsessing over my lousy blog design.
10) Why don’t more people leave comments? Should I ask more questions?

So there are my thoughts. My dad has just called and informed me I should go take a walk because it is sunny. I think I will.