Our soap stash is refilled. I made pellucid swimming pool blue bars scented with sweet grass and sandalwood, bars looking like Jadeite and smelling of Eden's Garden, floral bars with multiple colors.

As I was doing this, #2 son told me about a coworker of his.

"You know what I like to do to relax?" he had said. "I make soap."

"My mom does that," said #2 son.

"You boil the fat and  let the scum rise to the top. Then you make explosives. The soap is just a byproduct."

I asked whether this young man might be dangerous.

"Yeah, probably," was my son's answer, "but not to me."

 I made whole wheat cinnamon rolls.

Since I have a bread machine, I can do this kind of thing before church. Then came the early service, and I taught the youth Sunday School, and then the later service.

We sang "Peace, Be Still," a song I had never heard before. It has a section where you sing

"Whether the wrath of the storm-tossed sea Or demons or men or whatever it be,
No waters can swallow the ship where lies The Master of ocean and earth and skies."

This section starts soft and low and has a mounting crescendo as it gets higher and you sing "ocean and earth and skies" on a double forte. Then you have a subito piano to a sweet lilting line:

"They all shall sweetly obey thy will: Peace, be still; peace, be still."

 It's somewhat funny, but  fun to sing.

I came home and made scalloped potatoes with ham, cantaloupe from the garden, grapes, biscuits, and the rolls left over from breakfast.

This is just evidence that I actually cooked something for my family.

Following lunch and soapmaking, there was a meeting of the worship ministry. I'm the leader of the music team, so I went there to represent.

We had lengthy discussions of the ushers and greeters and lay readers and sanctuary upkeep people, each of which discussions ended with the realization that we needed someone to be in charge of finding such people. I asked some probing questions designed to determine who ought to be in charge of finding people to be in charge of those things. We all agreed that the job should be done by a guy who wasn't at the meeting, the pastor agreed to call him and tell him so, and we moved on.

This is a major reason for not missing meetings.

We then had a discussion of Advent and Christmas. It seems early, doesn't it? However, after some spirited debate on the question of whether or not Christmas carols should be sung during Advent (the words "pandering" and "fundamentalist" came into it), there was agreement that Advent needed some marketing.

There was a new guy there. New to me, at least. Quite a nice man, carrying an enormous stack of binders filled with financial data and hoping to get off the finance committee and onto the worship committee instead. He said, "I've been a Methodist all my life, and I've never heard the term 'Advent carol.'"

I'd been saying that people would come to love the Advent carols as much as the Christmas carols if they had the opportunity. Suwanda said you had to give the people what they wanted, and they wanted Christmas carols. I believe that it was right about there that the word "pandering" was used. Many people don't realize that "pander" is an old word for "pimp," but things did get a bit heated.

I'm going to be in charge of marketing Advent. I think Advent is pretty lovable, and I've got an early start, so this seems doable.

Today, however, I have other kinds of marketing to do. Three blog posts, a site analysis, and a client meeting are on the docket. I think that's probably all I can accomplish today. The client meeting is near the lake, so I plan to walk around said lake afterwards, and I intend to do some more sewing this evening. I'm expecting a call about an upcoming workshop, and possibly also to hear from the college with final word about my teaching schedule.

Happy Monday!

Yesterday began with a nice rainstorm, so I didn't go to the farmers' market. I went to Target in search of some aids to organization, and a filter for my range hood.

Once I was on a mentoring committee for someone. The goal was to keep her from losing her job. We weren't successful in this, I'm sorry to say, largely because she wouldn't let us help her.

If you ever are so much in danger of losing your job that you are given a mentoring committee, remember that they are on your side. Their assignment is to keep you from losing your job. Refusing to allow them to look at your lesson plans and ignoring all their advice is unwise.

Anyway, one of the other committee members said to me in exasperation one day, "She knows she needs to get organized, so she buys shelves!"

I've always remembered that. I recognize the temptation, after all. You feel like having this wonderful organizing tool will cause you to be organized. There are other variations, too. Buying cool workout gear will cause you to become fit. Buying new cleaning supplies will cause your house to become clean. Buying new makeup will make you beautiful.

None of these things works, by the way.

But there are times when an organizing tool is valuable. I bought some hangers. They are on special right now for Back to School, so this is a good time to get them if you need some. I also was in search of an earring container of some kind. I found my little lost earring box, which I had filled up with my homemade earrings. However, while it was lost, I had made more. So there I was with more earrings than space for them. You really can't just keep your earrings in a drawer. They need sorting. So I went to find a box with multiple compartments.

I now have so many earrings, thanks to my jewelry-making spree, that I couldn't find a box with sufficient compartments.

However, I did find this metal mesh desk organizer. You can hang your earrings in the mesh, and still have some boxes to put other jewelry in.

Then I did a nice healthy grocery shopping and came on home to sew.

I made this tropical rayon top. It hung overnight so I can hem it today.

#2 daughter has told me repeatedly that tropical prints are out of style, and also not to wear anything that looks as though it could go on a sofa. I love tropical rayon, and this was a remnant going for practically nothing, so I ignored those instructions.

The pattern for this is Butterick 3383, a woven T shirt and tank top. I've made the tank top successfully a couple of times. I intended to make it again from this fabric.

However, I saw immediately that there was enough fabric in the remnant to make sleeves. How could I throw it away?

I have made this woven T-shirt several times. Most recently I made it in hot pink stretch poplin. It was on sale for $1.99 a yard, and I got it to make the tank top. When I cut this large enough at the bust, it is too wide at the shoulder. That's not a problem with the tank top. With the current style of little bits of gathering at the center of tops, I've just been gathering the excess in at the front. That doesn't really suit this particular top. It didn't suit the pink one, either. It ended up looking like a nightgown.

The question is: why, knowing that this pattern is just flat out not going to fit me, do I continue making it? This is not the TNT concept. you're supposed to make a muslin, fix all fitting problems, then make a perfect one in your fashion fabric (as the seamstresses say) and from then on you can make up that pattern with confidence ever more, finding it easier every time. You are not just supposed to make a pattern repeatedly because you've found it easy, and repeat the same fitting errors each time.

After making this and trying it on and finding that it didn't fit and doing the gathers, I cut the pink one down into a tank top. I may do the same with this one as well.

After church, I plan to hem this tropical top, and do the new edges of the pink one as well. I have a meeting this afternoon, but there should be time in there to do a bit more sewing.

I intend to make this tunic. It has darts. I don't like darts. For one thing, they're hard. For another, they seem to me to draw attention to the bosom. But they do provide a better fit for the buxom.

Once I've made this one, I will have used up all the terrifically cheap fabric I snagged at that fabric sale. It may then be time to plan myself a new SWAP.

There were good things about the college I went to yesterday:

• "We're a happy group," said the department chair, and it seemed to be true.
• After I do a semester on campus and take their training for online teaching, I can continue teaching just the distance learning courses in the future.
• I enjoyed the feeling of being back on campus. Not that I'd ever been to that campus before, and I got seriously lost on the way there and on the way back. It just felt very comfortable to be walking across a campus again.
• They have a very regimented plan for Freshman Comp, so there's hardly any prep involved.
• They were perfectly agreeable to the idea that I would only teach there if they had the kind of schedule I wanted. Sometimes administrators find this ofensive. I don't blame them. But I also said, "It's also okay if you don't have a course for me this semester, and want to call me back next semester instead."
• Getting back to the classroom will allow me to maintain my membership in the Educators' Club, which is important for my freelance work. I can't write effectively about the classroom if I'm never there and have little contact with people who are there.

There were also bad things:

• "We pay nothing," the administrator said cheerfully. It isn't exactly nothing, but it isn't wealth beyond dreams of avarice, either. In fact, if I'm just teaching one class for them, the payment for the whole semester will be just about the same as what my big client was paying me for one 20 hour week.
• The drive. This is of course the Big Bad Thing. However, I listened and repeated the Rosetta Stone French CDs all the way, and of course I can also compose blog posts and things while I drive. Maybe I will get to where I can drive on the freeway and the drive won't be so long. The surface road version of the drive also takes me past the branch of my gym which has a swimming pool. If I teach on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, I can stop off on the way home for a swim.

I got back and did the content for two web sites. I closed up a kitchen show and took the rummage to the church for today's rummage sale and went to the bank. I intended then to do the blog posts I had waiting, but it was by that time 5:00. I don't know whether it has been apparent from my xanga, but this has been a jam-packed week, and I was just plain tired. I sat and looked at the computer for a little while, and then just shut it down and stretched out on the couch with a novel. I ordered in pizza, which makes my husband pretty angry, and later on I watched the opening of the Olympics and finished hemming the nightgown-like top I've been working on. (I'm wearing it today, and it is very comfortable.)

I did a few calculations. If all the things I have as work possibilities actually come through -- all the things I've already agreed to, I mean -- I will have a 50-hour work week. That's okay. And some of the things may not come through.

But I feel quite sure at this point that I will have some work to do. Things are in fact going very well with my self-employment.

Now I need to get my non-work life back in hand. Things always do fall apart in August chez fibermom, actually, and it's usually worse than this. When the HGP starts up at the end of August, I shovel out the house and return to normal life.

But maybe I don't have to do that this year. In the past, I've just accepted this as part of the nature of August. The Empress and I would look at one another's haggard faces sometimes and compare horror stories: who had put on yesterday's panties rather than summon up the energy to do the laundry, who had driven through a burger joint and called it dinner...

August is just another month for me now. I can't imagine that I'm just going through Back to School and all will right itself once school starts. What I'm doing now is my actual life. And -- in case you hadn't noticed -- I am having a wonderful time. I love my work. All of it. I don't feel the least bit unemployed and we are, as the boys put it, out of crisis mode.

But I haven't gotten past acting like I'm still in crisis mode. I've gained weight, my skin is blotchy, I get to the gym only a couple of times a week, I go for whole days without fruit or vegetables, I put on decent clothing only for meetings, as though it were some kind of disguise, and otherwise slouch around the house in random rags, I largely ignore my husband and my kids, I don't return phone calls, and generally am always working. I have made some efforts to counteract this, but I'm not being very successful.  

Chanthaboune said I just needed structure. I can't really make a schedule yet, since I don't have all the information I need, but I am going to begin by having normal weekends and possibly also evenings. I have made a good start on this a couple of times so far this summer, but I have backslid into squalor again pretty quickly. Fortunately, I can always try again.

Today will be a PSD, punctuated by proper housekeeping and errands. Actual meals will occur. Laundry is being done right this very moment. Excalibur!

Yesterday's workshop went well. It was fun. The Computer Guy stayed safely at the PowerPoint podium and showed off the Sketchup and I crept around helping people . I think that it is hugely easier to learn a new computer application if there is somebody like me right there to say, "It's okay, you've just zoomed in so much that you can't see the shape any more" and help fix it. It might have been the first time The Computer Guy has ever had applause for building something onscreen -- there was a spontaneous outburst of admiration for his pioneer cabin.

I raced right off to do some vocal coaching for this week's church soloist.

I was expecting someone with pitch problems. I figured we'd work on breath support and help her get the notes, and come up with a nice little solo.

This woman can really sing. If she had a CD out, I'd buy it.

She kept saying, "Am I off? I feel like I'm off there."
I said, "You have a wonderful, special sound."
"That means I'm off pitch, right?"

Finally I had to say, "You are on pitch all the time. You don't have to think about that any more. Forget that."

Not only did she sing on pitch, which is usually as far as you can expect to get with someone who asks for help with her solo, but she is a stylish singer.

"Are you nervous?" I asked her.

Her face crumpled.

"I don't get why you're nervous. Someone who sounds like you has no reason to be nervous. Not only is it beautiful, but if someone who had heard you before were walking in the hallway, they'd know it was you. You have a really special sound. But when you're thinking, 'Am I off pitch? Am I singing it wrong?' I can hear that you're thinking about that."

She said she didn't like to cause people trouble by making mistakes.

"That can matter in some cases," I tried to agree, "but in this case, CD is the accompanist and you're the soloist. It's her job to keep up with you. It's your job to sing. You can do whatever you want."

We talked about creating some space for her voice and not squishing the high notes, and she sang through her song a few more times. She began to feel more comfortable.

"I need to try out the microphone," she said.
"Why? You don't need a microphone."
"I'm a loud person," she said ruefully.

I've never before run into anyone who could take all compliments and turn them into criticisms.

"Listen," I said, because after all she had asked me to help, "when you're singing this song, you shouldn't be thinking about yourself. You know the song, you don't have any trouble with pitch, you sound great, so you don't have to think about those things. There might be someone in the church that morning who really needs the message you're singing. There might be people for whom this song is what they need to experience worship fully that day. Think about them, not about yourself. Then you won't be nervous."

You might not think it, but I have a pretty good line in the Impassioned Speech department.

I asked if she would honor me by allowing me to sing with her sometime.

She said she couldn't plan past this one song.

"You have to. Otherwise, you'll get through this one song and thank God for letting you survive and never do it again. And I'm standing here thinking I can't believe we had someone like you in the congregation and never got you up to sing."

We ran into Janalisa in the hall and I informed her that she would have to do a trio with us. She has the highest voice of the three, then the new singer, and I'm the lowest. I have a plot for us to sing Anonymous 4's arrangement of "Noah's Weary Dove." I don't intend to allow either of them to escape.

Now, I don't know whether I have mentioned in these pages the problem with the church's web site. There is one. And it is largely the fault of one person. He's an IT guy, so The Computer Guy checked out the situation for me.

"He's very insecure," he said.

So when CD and I went out for coffee following the wonderful coaching session, I asked her what might be the best way to approach this insecure person.

CD is a counselor. I expect her to know these things.

I pointed out that she had already seen my technique with the insecure in our vocal coaching session: I tell them to buck up and quit thinking about themselves so much.

While I do believe that insecure people think about themselves too much, and indeed that thinking about oneself too much  is the source of lots of unhappiness, I don't feel sure that this approach will work with the IT guy. And we want him to do a couple of specific things. And also he and I are on a committee together and I went to be able to get along with him.

CD didn't actually have a solution. I had thought she could say, "Here's what you do with insecure people" but apparently it doesn't work that way.

CD offered to drive with me to my appointment in the Next County to the North today. Being a counselor, she understands agoraphobia and recognizes that having someone else in the car makes all the difference.

"You didn't think I was going to drive on the freeway, did you? You have way too high an opinion of me."

 Nope. I am going to leave way early and take the surface roads. If I get there too early, I can stop for coffee. I'm going to take my sketch block, so I can work on web sites.

If they can offer me just Tuesday and Thursday morning classes, and if they pay a reasonable amount, I'll do it.  Otherwise, I am feeling confident enough of having enough work to do that I will feel fine about saying, "Call me when you need people in my county."

This school actually has a corporate branch about four minutes from my house. I could teach The Dark Art there. How fun would that be? This is my eventual goal, in fact, though I do like teaching Freshman Comp and will be happy to be back to doing that if they can give me a schedule with minimal driving.

After that appointment I have to go pick up #2 son's bleaching trays and then get back here and finish those web sites. I realize that I have been saying all week that I was going to do that, and here they are not finished yet. If I don't get them done today, I'll have to do them tomorrow. Otherwise, I plan a PSD (Personal Sewing Day).

TGIF, everyone!

My new soap mold has a very elaborate embossed design, very pretty, and well-nigh invisible in an all-white soap. This bar will be for household use. It's scented with Lily-of-the-Valley, and will be a pleasure to use even if it doesn't show off the design well.

That was the end of the day, though.

The beginning of the day, after the emails and blogs, was a dental appointment for #2 son. It started as a routine cleaning and ended with $500 of dental work needed, as these things so often do. Sigh.

Next came haircuts, which went without incident. Maybe there are people who go into the hairdresser's for a trim and come out with $500 worth of desperately-needed primping, but it doesn't happen to us.

The boys struck a deal with me: if I'd drop them off before heading out on the rest of my errands, they'd clean the house, and then I could bring burgers home for lunch. To celebrate. Not sure what we were celebrating, but I'd do a lot to get my house cleaned, even slightly. I dropped them off and headed back out. The bank, the post office to mail a hostess packet, a stop at a civilized little dress shop to pick up a top for today's workshop, the grocery store, and then I drove through the burger place.

People who know me are being amazed. I'd had to go to two appointments and do several other errands and I went to a clothing store? I know it's amazing. I'm amazed. I just want to look well-dressed this afternoon. My new Hawaiian shirt won't do, and a wool suit is not appealing in triple digit heat.

It is a small shop, not in a mall, and it is visually unalarming. I can't really explain that. It's just that stores often are disorienting for me, because of my little mental disorder. They make me feel that I need to escape as fast as possible. This one isn't like that. No loud music, either. There was a nice, useful woman there. I threw myself on her mercy. I left with a top in dark teal. I also have a new haircut.

Why, you may wonder, do I suddenly care what I look like? I go do workshops all the time without any particular regard for what I'm wearing or how I look.

But this is a group of schoolteachers. They will pounce on me asking about the store, and what happened, and what am I doing now, and isn't it sad, and where are they supposed to go now to get their borders.

I drove through Backyard Burgers and was at the window when The Computer Guy called.

Surprising right there. I've called him a couple of times without advance notice -- "I'm passing your office... Are you there for me to drop off a file?" or "I'm in a meeting... Can you take on another client and if so when can they get onto your calendar?" He had emailed me, but I hadn't been home. Still, the call was surprising.

He sounded alarmed. Actually, he sounded young. The principal had called with a whole bunch of changes to the workshop. We were supposed to tie everything up to the frameworks.

Sure. I'd done that. Remember all those PDF sheets? Did she want me to put the numbers on all the activities, because I could do that.

No, not that. It was something else. She'd sent him to a website. He'd sent me the website.

Okay, I'm not at my computer but I will be in about three minutes. This shouldn't be a problem. Even if the school has something specific, it'll go with the state frameworks.

It's a refrigerator curriculum.

Ah, yes. That just means a sheet the kids are supposed to take home and post on their refrigerators for the family to support.

He can't believe this.

No, really. You might think there'd need to be some more cogent reason behind that name, but that's what it is.

He continues to be skeptical. The principal also said they're not doing social studies this year, so she doesn't want any social studies connection, and she can't see why there would be one, anyway.

That's okay, I say soothingly. It's not her job to see those connections. We'll do that for her. I also explain how, because of NCLB, schools sometimes decide not to teach anything much. I'm in my driveway. I hand off the burgers to the boys and get over to my computer, continuing to speak soothingly. He's going to like working with the schools, really, but part of the territory is sometimes feeling like you're in a surreal world.

Okay. We are both looking at the refrigerator curriculum PDFs. Shapes, fractions, everybody is doing shapes or fractions. We're good with that lesson, right? The modeling a house one... most grades have some kind of geometry, and measuring...  okay, can it be modeling a pioneer cabin? Then we can pull in "recognize changes in communities over time" and we'll have everybody. I'll make new lesson plan sheets with truncated lesson plans and lists for each grade of the relevant lines from the refrigerator curriculum.

The Computer Guy is calmer. However, the principal has also told him that there's not enough time to do anything like creative exploration. Everything has to be very step by step and laid out ahead of time. We shouldn't try to discuss how to adapt the activities for the different grade levels. Just focus on second and third grades. They'll have been working on GPS all morning and they'll be tired.

Ah, I say. She basically told you not to have any fun with this.

Yeah. That was the message.

I'll have the new plans out right away, I assure him. We can do this. Is there any conflict with what he had planned to do? I can monitor and adjust on my part. It's a good thing she told us this the day before.

The Computer Guy feels that she should have told him this two months before.

I see his point. I hit the Toggle. One hour and twelve minutes later, all is well. We're back to emails. I go eat my cold burger.

Now that I have another team member to be responsible for, I can't abandon my cookware business, so I have planned some time to work on that. I get my website back up, order a small sample package since I didn't earn the new things in June, when I was busy having a major life change and crisis, send out an email to my customers who probably thought I had died, and set up a couple of kitchen shows. My bookstore client calls. I race on down. She has books for me, and reports on how things worked out from yesterday. We do a little additional plotting, and I'm back to the computer.

I have these three websites to work on, but by that time I had very little time before my Wednesday afternoon marathon began, so I returned calls to my daughters and then worked on my own website -- one of the three, and the easiest one to put in a little time on. I didn't even Toggl. In the midst of that I remembered a writing job my mother had sent an announcement for, and did the application for that.

Off to class. Then a discussion of worship, and the place of scripture in it. Then choir practice. Then home for a slapped-together dinner. I did not have any produce at all yesterday, unless you count the lettuce and tomato on the burger. Also no gym time.

I asked #1 son to do the kitchen. He refused. We had a bit of a discussion about it, which he ended by saying, "I know you work hard, and you work a lot. And I know I don't do anything. I'm just saying you don't do as much housework as you think you do."

At which I went and finished the laundry, cleaned the kitchen, and made a couple of bars of soap since I was in the right set of rooms for it and needed some wind-down time anyway.

So that gets us back to the soap.

Today I have the workshop in the afternoon, and then I am meeting this week's soloist for some coaching. My plan for the morning is to do a Pilates/yoga class DVD, get something done on those web sites, and make sure I'm completely au fait with the refrigerator curriculum. I want to be very supportive to The Computer Guy. He has done plenty of corporate training, but I don't think he's ever been put into a roomful of women with instructions not to have fun.

The soap supplies arrived. I intend to have fun with these when I get a chance.

Today I've got some appointments, and I need to finish up the materials for tomorrow's workshop. I had a call yesterday from another school wanting a state history workshop, so I'm hoping I'll get that scheduled as well.

I blithely gave them my hourly figure. I guess this means I've gotten accustomed to the idea of hourly work.

Yesterday was a very productive day, though I didn't finish everything I had hoped to finish.

That was mostly about how much I had hoped to finish. But it was also partly about my having gotten a call from my bookstore client. She said, "Get your bottom down here -- it's free massage day!"

So I went on and had my free massage, and gave the masseuse some free marketing advice in return. Really, I think she should approach companies with office workers. People who sit at a computer all day long. She could set up her massage chair in the break room and run them through ten minutes at a time, and it would probably increase their productivity immensely. Even if the company had the workers pay some portion of the fee, it would still be a wonderful service for them, and might increase morale significantly.

That wasn't my main advice to her. It was just my favorite idea.

Then I had a good talk with the bookstore owner about her web site and her traffic, and she mentioned that she felt she needed a new product line. I was able to come up with a couple of good ideas for her, supported by market research Janalisa had mentioned, and to list a good selection of manufacturers, none of whom sells in the mass market. This made me feel like a fairy godmother.

"My work here is done!" I said, and flounced off.

I need to gather things up for the church rummage sale today. I started yesterday, packing up all the mismatched mugs and bowls from the cupboard, and today I added those sports-themed sheets and curtains that have been sitting in the linen cupboard since the boys' voices changed.

The last bit of random persiflage I have to offer you this morning is the fact that I have lately been getting spam in German. I suppose it is spam. I don't know much German -- only the stuff I've sung and some words related to needlework. It appears that this mail is not about love, God, sewing, or knitting. Beyond that I can't say. If I am getting fascinating discussions of philosophy, I'm missing them.

I have to get my boys out of bed for those back-to-school haircuts and teeth cleanings. They've been sleeping till nearly noon, so I think this is a job for the double-burner griddle. The smell of bacon may do the trick.

I met my deadlines yesterday, and signed a recruit (with some trepidation, since I don't know what I'm doing there), and accepted a part-time teaching job (with no trepidation at all, oddly enough -- she must have just called me at the right moment), and helped #1 son pick his classes and #2 son get a proper grownup cell phone with a Plan instead of the pay-ahead one he's been using.

#2 son also got a phone call on my cell phone. It was a grown man asking for him by a logical nickname, but not one that he actually uses. I passed the phone over. The man asked him a bunch of probing questions, including his height and weight, and said he wanted to meet up with him. #2 son, who is 16, said he was heading out with his mom, and the man said, "Oh, cr**, your mom's coming along?"

The man in question was a Marine recruiter.

Sounds like a dangerous pedophile, right? Our government should work on that. It creeped us out.

We're letting our lettuce go to seed. It looks cool.

The garden is going to wrack and ruin, though. This is not good.

However, it is usual for August. August is usually sort of nightmarish chez fibermom. This year, I'm not really participating in Back to School, though. True, I'm doing a teacher workshop this week and I'll be teaching again, but the whole frantic Back to School shopping thing is going on without me. Not only am I not working in a teacher store this year, I'm not even going back to school shopping at all.

My boys said they can buy their own clothes if they need some, and I ordered #1 son a planner online from Franklin Covey, so BTS is just something other people are doing.

If you hear me whining about being too busy, remind me of that.

Actually, I feel busy, but not too busy. I waver between thinking I should be trying to fill up my calendar in case Client #6 doesn't send me a new contract, and thinking that I had better not fill up my calendar in case Client #6 sends me a new contract. In the meantime, I'm busy.

Today I have no appointments at all. The gym is on my list, and I have three web sites to write content for and two blog posts (not counting this one), and preparation for the upcoming workshop. This is at least 10 hours' work, so it may not all get finished today. Tomorrow is full of appointments, though, and so is Thursday, and I've got one on Friday as well, so today needs to be a full writing day. And that doesn't even include the hookworm eradication article.

The garden will just have to take care of itself.

If I had time to knit, and didn't already have a few WIPs, I would knit these.

Finished! This is Folkwear's "Rosie the Riveter" pattern in a nice soft cotton. I may make another of these in linen.

I woke up this morning with the sense of dread that I get when I have a lot of appointments. This is left over from before I Overcame Agoraphobia. If I have more than three appointments in a week, I get that feeling. Fortunately, I am able to Overcome it.

I have a client coming over today, a business meeting tonight, a hairdresser's appointment on Wednesday, a workshop on Thursday, and a meeting on Thursday evening with this week's soloist for the church, who wants some coaching. All pleasant things.

Coming back to say I just had a call about part-time teaching. While I was not up for that last time it was offered to me, it now seems to me to offer a bit of secure income without interfering with my grand entrepreneurial plans, so I added a Friday meeting to set up that schedule. This is really too many appointments for one week, as far as my little mental disorder goes, but I am Overcoming it.

Oh -- and coming back again to say that I just got a call reminding me of #2 son's dental appointment on Wednesday. That makes seven appointments in one week, plus of course rehearsal and class. I think I need to build some anti-stress activities into this week. Or maybe not. I guess it's a good test of how well I've Overcome Agoraphobia. Did I mention that the Friday meeting is in the Next County to the North?

Today I have three blog entries to write (not counting this one, of course, which is personal), I need to get a final report together for Client #6, I have prep to do for the workshop, and I hope to get the content for my own web site completed.

Also on my Toggl I have the hookworm article, content for two other sites, my monthly blog post for a site where I rotate with several other writers, and a small linking campaign for Client #4. I also must do a run-through of Google Analytics for all my clients this week, so I can strategize for whoever needs strategy. Client #2 is actually thinking about increasing visibility. I would love to do that for him. You know how sometimes you just really want to get your hands on someone's rankings? Then I have a couple of new ideas, and I may need to look for further business to replace Client #6.

At the moment, it actually seems like a good thing that I am on hiatus from Client #6. I have at least thirty hours of work listed here, so adding his twenty hours would have made for a really long work week. 

Now, an important and deep question: do you have to reply to emails?

This topic has come up several times lately. First, in a conversation with Chanthaboune, in which I said that nobody has to respond to emails. That's one of the great things about them, to my mind. You send it off at your convenience, they respond at their convenience, and people can always just delete an email. You can send someone ten emails in one day if you feel like it, and it's no bother to them, because they can ignore it or read it when they fell like it. Emails aren't subject to the same etiquette as a physical letter or a phone call.

Then I realized that it has been over a week since I sent off the book audition, and I've heard nothing back. Hitherto, the guy I sent it to has responded to all emails within a day. It therefore seems possible that it wasn't received.

The very freedom with which we delete emails, not to mention the spam filters, make it very possible that emails we send aren't received. If there is no social requirement to respond, then we have no way of knowing when they've reached their target. Which I suppose must have been the original basis of the etiquette requiring responses to letters. And yet, if it isn't de rigueur to respond to emails, then we can hardly noodge people about responding to our emails, even to the extent of saying, "Did you get my email?"

Which actually happens quite a bit. The Computer Guy has even asked me that when I've responded, possibly because he didn't get it, and possibly because my response has been something like "k" and it didn't stay in his memory once he'd deleted it.

So now I'm wavering. Any thoughts? Do you have to answer emails?

Since I came back here anyway, I'll report that early returns on this question, in comments and by email, say I'm wrong -- you have to respond to personal and business emails. Not to the ones that are offering to enlarge body parts that you may or may not own, but yes to the ones from humans.

I did no sewing yesterday. The Fall Kickoff meeting was fun, and I did grocery and laundry and my French lesson and played with Sketchup and also did a little bit of work because I was inspired, and then it was too late to start sewing.

I have done some stash enhancement lately. Now, I am on hiatus from my big client, with a hope but no guarantee of starting back up next month. I have dental work and #1 son's tuition  and #2 son's college visits on the horizon, and the price of my website and possibly that software package I mentioned, and I daresay there will be other business expenses that I haven't foreseen (Blessing says it cost $5,000 to set up the home office for her husband's business). There are also likely to be some expenses coming up for the new season with the kitchen tools business as well, depending what place that ends up having in my future. Given this combination of uncertain income and large expenses, I am being careful.

And yet I bought yarn, fabric, and soapmaking supplies, as well as ordering some books.

The soapmaking supplies were because we are running out. I spend about $70 a year on those supplies, and that keeps my family in soap, bubble bath, shower gel, lip balm, lotions, and so forth, plus supplying materials for lots of gifts. I did my last order about 15 months ago, so it was just time. I can't buy these things locally, and shipping from the company on the west coast where I buy it is ruinous, so it isn't practical to buy these things a bit at a time instead of all at once.

I'm doing pretty well on justifying that one, actually.

And there was a big sale on fabric. Of course, there is always a big sale somewhere, so that doesn't really justify it. And I have quite a stash of fabric, too. And I haven't been sewing. It is certainly true that I need clothing, and also that making your own is thrifty, but I think I'm skating on thin ice here if I want to claim that my fabric purchases were frugal.

The yarn is what really tips it over. I bought the yarn Knitpicks used for the Doctor's Bag that I have been wanting to make for the past year. It wasn't on sale. I don't need another bag. I have an actual stash of yarn -- enough, I would estimate, for a full year's knitting, given that much of it is laceweight and you know how slow that is. I really had no business doing that.

The books scarcely deserve a mention. My book purchases are so much less than they used to be (a combination of Amazon Vine, Booksfree, Frugalreader, and no longer working in a bookstore) that I can hardly complain about the occasional little book purchase. And one of my clients is letting me buy books from her at cost.

Still, these frivolous purchases represent three to six hours of work, depending who's paying me.

The only way to justify this is to make sure that I get the most out of the purchases. So I will get some sewing in this week. Starting today, I hope.

Hey, speaking of finance, I learned something recently.

Now, if you're like me, your portfolio or retirement account or mutual fund or whatever you have has been losing money since --  well, since Mr. Bush got into office, roughly (I have no oil or munitions shares). So I haven't been contributing to it. Seems like it's just throwing away money. It used to double in value every few years, but now the numbers just go down, so I sigh and try not to think about it. However, it isn't really losing money, I'm told, because I have the same number of shares as before. The shares themselves are merely cheaper now than they were before. It is therefore now the time to buy more shares, because they are essentially on sale. Then, when perhaps things improve, the shares that we have will become more valuable and we will be richer.

If those of you who are more knowledgeable than I have opinions on this, I will be glad to hear them.

 The book Geekspeak: Why Mathematics plus Life equals Happiness, which will be out in September, may be a real test of geekiness. After all, many opf us will not agree that our happiness depends on knowing the size of our personal vocabularies or the amount of space our country needs to bury its dead each year, let alone the speed of flatulence. But Tattersall tells us just how we can calculate these things with a fair degree of accuracy. Often, the means of calculating these things require him to give us tips on how not to alarm the neighbors while we do them. It is clear that Tattersall has actually done these things.

I'm enjoying the book a great deal. There are lots of numbers and equations, and I would guess that lots of people won't enjoy the book because of them, however droll the humor and intriguing the ideas. Lots of us will enjoy it. and then there will be the few who will think it worthwhile to spend an afternoon calculating the weight of their heads. These are the geeky ones.

Janalisa and I had lunch together yesterday and caught up on all the interesting news. We went to Jason's Deli, which my son tells me is a chain, so I'll recoimmend it to you. They have lots of nice fruit and vegetables, and their food is tasty but hasn't been messed around with much. They are conservation-minded and don't include trans fats or high-fructose corn syrup in their foods. And yet they will still serve you a sandwich on a croissant, ice cream, and baked goods. I didn't have dessert, but everything looked very good.

Today we will be off to a large meeting at an ungodly hour of the morning. As I write, I have the Pizza Carbonara for the occasion in the oven. This is very delicious, by the way. You take your pizza crust (accomplished with your bread machine overnight or bought pre-made) and slather it with Alfredo sauce, grated mozarella and Parmesan, spinach, and bacon. Bake it. Do not think about the saturated fat content while you eat it.

I have a lot of interesting things to think about over the weekend, two deadlines on Monday, and eight things on my Toggl. However, since I am on hiatus from my big client for whom I was doing twenty hours a week, I feel able to take long lunches, and I stopped early yesterday evening and made these earrings.

They may be a bit much for me. The leaves don't seem to be doing anything leaflike, you know.

I intend, when I get home from today's meeting, to do some sewing. Probably also laundry and groceries.

I am probably also going to play with Sketchup. Even if that is a geeky way to spend time on a weekend. I want the upcoming workshop to be wildly successful. But I am determined to have a sewing FO this weekend, in spite of it.