Excuses, Excuses

Hey. How ya doin'? I'm good, I'm good. Thanks for asking.

I know I skipped Musical Monday. I am sorry.

Things are just getting a little crazy around here. It's my last week at work and I've been putting in some long hours trying to tie up loose ends as neatly as I can.

It's storming something fierce here this week and trying to get my work done, job hunt, and get on here to blog at you between power outages is, well, trying. And our garden is getting pummeled by all this rain, but the lawn is loving it.

And I've been distracted by deer. Again.

But who could blame me for being distracted by Bambi? I mean come on, it doesn't get any cuter. Well, except when the Bambi triplets put in an appearance. Then it's just cute overload.

It's also week 3 since I started the job hunt. Not even a nibble. I'm staying positive and trying to keep in mind the hiring process takes time. I can see that recruiters are checking out my LinkedIn profile, so I'm staying hopeful.

In the meantime, I am lining up as much freelance work as I can and defining what services I can offer—it's a pretty wide range including proofing, editing, project coordination, search engine optimization, content strategy, and content creation—and at what rates. I will say, if my old job wants me to come back as a web editor and help out, I will not hesitate to charge market rates. I could understand being under paid when I didn't have much experience, but I now have 5 years' experience, and since I'm on the job hunt I have a better sense of what that's worth and what I'm bringing to the table.

Scoob's been trying to convince me to go into consulting, but I don't know. (I actually think we should go into consulting together. We do very similar work and with his graphic design background and my editorial and content background, I think we'd offer a strong service package. But we both think that may be just too much together time. But it's an idea.) Consulting or not, I need to set up a new email account to handle the freelance stuff so I can keep work and personal separate, but I've been over thinking it so I haven't done this yet.

I'll also need to open a new bank account to better account for freelance income at tax time. The last time I had significant freelance income, I hadn't kept it separate and I had a heckuva time figuring it out while doing my taxes. Also toying with the idea of getting a business license and trying to find out if North Carolina has an income threshold where one is required. And then I'm trying to figure out what the name of that business might be, if I do, which is further stalling the email address/bank account thing.

So yeah, that's how I've been. I haven't forgotten about you. Just getting a little slammed by life at the moment.