Yesterday (if we can understand that term to be flexible, in that we are talking about a couple of hemispheres here) I added a client in New Mexico and one in Australia. I put them onto my calendar. This will put my invoices where I want them to be for the month. I also like both of these clients, and their websites are going to be fun for me to work with. I have two other proposals out there still. I set up a meeting with one of my pro bono projects, and I have assignments today for a couple of current projects.

I had an email last night responding to one of my link requests for my Big Client. "You may be wondering," they said, "why we haven't posted the terrific lesson plan you sent us." It is because they intend to feature it and include it in the newsletter they send out to massive numbers of teachers. Big Client's website is the centerpiece of the lesson plan. I sent the announcement along to him, of course. While my initial reaction to his message saying we didn't have a start date included a feeling that he should have told me sooner, I realized that my hesitation to commit myself because of the Big Client has led me to take on some interesting things that I wouldn't have felt free to do had I known ahead of time.

I also hear that my website is ready for me to add the content. I just have to learn how. So I'll be studying up on Dreamweaver over the weekend. Adobe is so nice about free trials.

Also, I got into my campus email at last. There I found much elderly email, including a request to join my class, as I had been highly recommended, which I found implausible but sweet.

My students did their second round of peer reviews yesterday. I put them into groups of five and walk around while they provide useful feedback on one another's projects. First I stopped to talk with one group that was all girls. They were telling each other how great the papers were, and how much better than the previous assignments, and how much smoother the writing sounded.

"You're being really supportive of one another," I said, "and that's great. But you're not giving each other much in the way of help for the rewrite. Be tougher."

"We're trying. It's just that these papers are all so much better than last time. There's nothing to say."

I admired one girl's semicolon and gave some suggestions for things they might discuss -- the specific word choices, the punctuation, the clarity of the organization -- and moved on to the next group. This one contained boys as well as girls, and they were still ooing and ahing over one another's papers.

"They're just so much better," they explained.

The third group had quit discussing their papers and moved on to country music: for and against. The papers, they explained, were just so much better.

We had a little chat as a class about getting even better, and they carried on.

I am looking forward to reading their papers.

That is on my list for today, plus the assignments for Clients #s 3 and 4, who got their numbers back before I had too many clients for numbers. I guess the newer ones will have to be geographical. I have a deadline for a blog post tomorrow morning, plus three routine ones, and I need to give some little bit of thought to one with a Monday deadline. That one is for a client who gives me topics, and he hasn't done so yet, so there is a limit to the amount of thinking I can do for it, but I'm hoping to be getting my own website up on Monday. I also really have to do my GTD processing today. Or else.

In short, I have plenty of work again. I have now put people out onto my calendar rather than deciding to work far into the night to get everyone done as soon as they ask (only a week out, it's true, but still, one has to start somewhere). Next project is to greet days with little billable work as opportunities to get caught up on the business side of my work, rather than deciding that it means I will never have enough work again.

Tuesday night class started up again last night. I am in a group with six other self-employed people (plus a couple of nurses, a homeschooling mother of five, and a Starbucks barista).I hope to benefit from their examples. Our leader, an interior designer, used the word "impactful" more than once. I am trying not to hold this against her.

Bell choir begins again tonight, and the class studying Serve God, Save the Planet, which I am leading, and then tomorrow night the choirlet starts rehearsals again. I will be completely back on fall schedule.

Since I didn't actually spend the summer drinking Mai Tais on the lanai, it may not matter much.

I wrote to my Big Client yesterday to ask for a start date, and he responded that he was glad I had asked him that, because he couldn't at this point predict a start date and I should quit waiting for him.

My phone conference with the prospective client was postponed till today, but I had a request for a proposal from a skydiving outfit in another state, and this morning I had one from some decorators in Sydney. I offered last night to help with the website for the Master Chorale, so that gives me two pro bono projects. I figure I can do them with scarcely more effort than is involved in proposals and meetings with prospective clients, and they will look good in my portfolio. Maybe I can take them off my taxes. At the very least, it's for a good cause.

It was a good rehearsal last night. I stood next to my old friend Egypt. I was very happy to see her, and it was nice to catch up, but she has a harsh voice, so I don't like to stand by her in rehearsals. Not only is there the matter of listening to her, but I also fear that the director will think it's me.

#1 son is working on the same piece I am; the student choirs are joining with us, the grownup choir, for an enormous cast of thousands sort of performance. #1 son says that choir is nerve-wracking. I asked whether his director, whom I think of as a fun guy, calls them out and embarrasses them. No, but he might, my son informed me. He is always standing there in fear of what might happen next. He also feels that he has pitch problems, by which he means he's not sure what he's supposed to sing, since he can't read music well and is standing far from the other basses. That's not what I mean by "pitch problems."

This business of proposals for prospective clients, to return to a probably boring topic, is rather fun. Very often I can see the problems right off. One of the Xangans once asked why her group didn't come up when someone searched for "London group" and I was able to say, "It's at least in part because you don't have the word 'London' anywhere on your site." However, when making proposals for prospective clients, I don't really want to tell them the immediate things I see. They might implement the one or two quick things for free, fail to see the changes they want, and dismiss the value of my Dark Art work without ever giving me a proper chance, or indeed paying me.

If the Australian design firm decides to go with someone cheaper, though, I'll be tempted to email them and say, "Oh, okay, I understand that you hired the inexpensive person from the Philippines because you couldn't afford me. Let me just tell you what a problem your alt tags are." Until then, I guess I have to be mysterious.

I have eight prospects right now. I am going to have to make files for them, I think. I suppose I will have hordes of prospects as time goes on, and I don't want to be saying, "Ah, yes, are you the one with no keywords in your meta language, or the one who chose words like 'inspiration'?"

It is at times like these that I think it would be better if someone were paying me a salary to do these things. True, if all eight decide to hire me, I will earn more than if I had a salary, but it could well be that none of them will hire me, and I will not even be casting my bread upon the waters, because I'm not telling them what I see in their web sites.

When jobhunting, you have to figure that only ten percent of your applications will result in an interview, and only ten percent of your interviews will result in a job offer. You could therefore easily spend a hundred hours in preparation and only end up with one job. However, you only need one job. For self-employment, I can spend 30 minutes on a proposal for a job which will only last a couple of hours anyway.

I do this for Client #2's clients with whom I subcontract, and they are very impressed. I should probably charge him for that.

But I can't charge anyone for the proposals I'm currently doing. Maybe I'll use them for case studies at my marketing blog once my website is at last live. Or write them up as examples in articles which I then sell to someone.

It'll be a punishment for their having chosen some less expensive person in the Philippines.

My scarf is nearing completion, for the simple reason that I am running out of yarn.

The lists are made for the HGP. I do the HGP every year, so I think that by now I don't really bother to explain it. And maybe I should, since it is possible that there are new people reading this, who are wondering what I'm talking about.

The HGP is the Holiday Grand Plan. Here in Hamburger-a-go-go-land, we have a way of celebrating the winter holidays that involves starting in October and going straight through till New Year's, overeating, overspending, and generally getting stressed out. Moms take on the equivalent, studies show, of a second fulltime job in the months of November and December, and get so overstressed trying to orchestrate a perfect holiday that the completely normal failure of the family to a) appreciate their work and b) become perfect for the occasion is like a slap in the face. Kids get so overexcited that Christmas is a disappointment, and often the culmination of weeks of maddening emotional meltdowns brought on by the holiday frenzy. Single people compare their lives to those of the people in ads and magazines and become deeply depressed.

This is not how it's supposed to be.

Every year, back when I worked in a book and toy store, I'd see the happy October shoppers, and the slightly grim November shoppers, and the December shoppers wavering on the edge of a complete meltdown, and I could tell that advance preparation was the key to enjoying the holidays.

You might think that cutting back and celebrating in a more sane manner is the key to enjoying the holidays, and I'd go along with that. However, cutting back also requires advance planning. Otherwise, you just get stressed by having nothing to wear to the office party, the sudden need to buy presents for people who give you gifts even though you had decided not to give them anything, and the realization that all the decisions about how to celebrate the holidays this year are being made by someone else.

But I for one don't like to think about winter holidays for months. I like to celebrate the seasons in order. I don't want to have Christmas on my mind so long that I'm tired of it. I like to enjoy the autumn, and Advent, too.

So my solution is the HGP. I do what the website tells me (they used to send a message by email, but I can still just go over and have a look on Sunday, add a few tasks to my planner for the week, and be ready) and it generally works out well. In my retail days, I was the one feeling calm and cheery while the women around me were commiserating with one another on how unlikely it was that they would ever be ready in time for the holidays.

I tried not to be smug.

Anyway, if you are doing the HGP, then this is the week for cleaning your living room and deciding how you want to celebrate this year.

I read a book by Peter Walsh a couple of weeks ago. He is, I believe, a reality TV host of some kind. His book wasn't filled with earth-shattering new revelations. However, I find that phrases and ideas from the book keep  coming back to my mind. If you're not on top of things at home, where you have almost complete control, he said, then how can you expect to be on top of things in other areas of your life?

So I'm not trying to scare you or anything, but here are before pictures of my living room.

Actually, it was fairly tidy yesterday. Then we folded laundry, played guitar, lifted weights, and stuff, and left everything sitting around.

This shows two things: first, that we are inclined to leave things sitting around, and second, that we don't have our systems sufficiently in order that it is simple to put things away. Also, this room needs dusting and other actual cleaning as well as tidying.

Personally, I'd like to have the TV and all other electronic gear tucked away neatly in an armoire, but my husband chose the current arrangement, and I have accepted it. Until I actually look at it. Then I want to do something about it.

Today I have a phone conference with a prospective client several states away, work for Client #4, and papers to grade. This evening I have a rehearsal for the Faure Requiem. In and among those things, I need to do GTD processing and I think I can also get some work done on cleaning the living room.

There's my work space. Bad enough that it's actually in the living room, but that's not really a space you can work in, is it?

I'm also going to get to the gym today. I haven't been managing it much lately, but once again Peter Walsh's words come to my mind. Think about your ideal life, he said, and what the difference is between that and your current life. Going to the gym is definitely part of my ideal life. And he also said, if you are so busy that you can't work exercise into your life, then you have to ask yourself why you're so overextended and fix that.

One thing that I'm trying to do, in light of the unevenness of the amount of work I have, is to recognize that I can actually work less than fulltime and still have enough income. Not that I want to work less than fulltime, but if I remember that I can, then I will be able to spend time on seeking more work, organizing my workspace, and improving my skills without becoming stressed because I have some moments that I can't bill anyone for. I can also go to the gym regularly, because work that doesn't get done when I have lots of assignments could be done when I have fewer, thus evening out my workload instead of alternating between overwork and worrying about not having enough work to do. Doesn't that sound smart?

I also applied for four more jobs at oDesk. I was feeling all smug about finishing the writing audition there last week in two hours, and being pretty confident that the buyer would hire me for the long term, but I discovered that he had also auditioned someone else. She is a lot cheaper than I am per hour, and got it done in 50 minutes. Of course, I haven't read her stuff, so I don't know about the quality, but if it's reasonably good, then she is going to be the winner in this competition. So I have gone back to the "apply for a bunch of stuff and see what happens" mindset rather than the "oh! I'd  better not overcommit myself, since they are actually going to hire me" one.

I figure that with time I'll settle down at the right spot along this continuum.

Yesterday I spent some time on the phone with #1 daughter/ "I need to get going," I said. "I have to do housework today." Then #2 daughter called. She had been stood up for a meeting. This happened to me earlier in the week. It's pretty infuriating, and you really have to go tell someone and share the bitterness.

Time flies when you're having fun. It was ten o'clock by then.

I told the boys that I just had to run a quick errand and then I'd be back and we would get to work on cleaning.

Then I went down to the bookstore. Client #3 gives me an employee discount on books, and I had an order to pick up. #1 son's novels for history class, #2 daughter's spy stories. Twilight, because all the girls in my comp class are reading it. I figure it'll give me insight.

I picked up the books and a check, passed over my own check, gave Client #3 some business advice.

"Are you in a hurry?" she asked. "Can you sit down?"
"Oh, I'm in no hurry," I assured her. "I just have to clean my house."

We sat down. We had a lot of conversational ground to cover, what with internet marketing and the doings at her church and her son and my sons and the doings at my church and the upcoming conference season and the challenges of cutting and pasting the descriptions into her new website without inadvertently deleting stock from her point of sale and inventory management software.

I headed on to the yarn shop. The hoped-for third ball of Touch Me was gone. Fortunately, the shop owner had another ball in her car. She was saving it for my friend Zimbabwe Griddle, who hadn't come to get it.

"She won't mind if you sell it to me," I assured the yarn shop staff.

I was petting the Debbie Bliss cashmere blends. I was in no hurry. I had time to stand there and tell lies.

"I think I have an extra ball," the shop owner said. And sure enough, she left for fifteen minutes or so and came back with a ball of the stuff. Now my scarf won't have to be truncated.

In the meantime, I petted all the other yarns in the shop, admired all the knitting samples, and ran into a friend.

"What are you up to?"
"I ought to be cleaning my house."
"Me too!" she crowed. "That's why I'm here!"

We had to catch up on work and the health of her parents and the academic careers of our sons and what we were both knitting. It took some time.

I tried to explain what I do.

"So you don't really make the websites, but you work with suppliers and things?"
"No, really I write. The parts you see, and the parts you don't see. And I write for the humans and the search engines at the same time."
Pause. "So you manage the websites?"
"In a way. I write the words. You know how there are words on websites?" I decided to stop there. She had more to tell me about her parents anyway.

I drove through and bought sandwiches for lunch, because by that time it was nearly one o'clock and the boys were waiting for me, I knew, eager to begin the housework. If I stopped to make lunch when I got back, it would be midafternoon and they would have better offers.

So we ate drive-through food, and then snapped into action.

#2 son cleaned the kitchen. #1 son and I got to work on the porch. We cleaned windows and took out the screens and hosed them down and scrubbed the furniture and denuded the ceiling of cobwebs.

It is possible that this picture doesn't look any different from the Before Picture, but really everything is much, much cleaner.

#1 son and I looked as though we'd been having a water balloon fight. We had begun with him wielding the broom and me going at things with Windex and old cleaning cloths, but he had quickly decided that spraying everything with a high-pressure jet of water would be more fun effective. 

We put in another half hour or so indoors, and felt that we had satisfied our honor sufficiently.

Then I began to think about knitted scarves.

Since it is such a long time since I knitted any scarves, I have lots of untried patterns. Estonian lace, corkscrews of various kinds, double knitting, enormous chunky things, braided scarves.

There are also a few scarf patterns online. No, actually, there are millions, but here are some that I am thinking about:

• The Anti-craft has a new issue up, filled with the usual ugly and useless stuff. However, they did once post a rather pretty scarf of tailored, pointy lace. If I removed the words "some pig" from it, it might be nice for someone I know who sees the charm of lacy scarves but doesn't like excessively girly stuff.
• The multidirectional scarf which you see in so many books nowadays...
• Knitty is all about scarves. My favorites among their offerings are the lacy Branch, the manly Henry, and the entrelac Danica.
• A nicely textured Miranda scarf with lots of cables.
• Marnie's scarf, another pointy lace one.
• Column of Leaves, a nice combination of traditional stitches.
• And a Fiery Dragon Scarf.

And of course you can take any stitch pattern you fancy and knit a long skinny rectangle of it, and presto! you have a scarf.

I actually spent quite a bit of time knitting yesterday, and finished the second ball of Touch Me. And I did look through all my knitting books. I did not make all those lists. Today begins Living Room Week, which is also "Question Week," for thinking about the meaning of Christmas for your family, so you can make your plans in a way that fits with your traditions and beliefs and so forth, instead of getting carried away by the marketing frenzy that will be upon us way too soon.

I'm on top of that, so I hope this afternoon to catch up on the listmaking, and possibly also to make some headway on the living room, depending how many interesting conversations I get distracted with first.

Today is for Unbounded Domesticity.

I spent the week either working or seeking work. Seeking work in the sense of sending proposals to people who expressed an interest in my services, and in the sense of completing the lengthy sign-up and testing process at oDesk. In all, I had 10 hours of actual billable work, which is not enough, and spent the remaining time in seeking work. It was a short week because of the holiday, and I knocked off early on Friday, too, but still, I spent twice as long doing site analyses and proposals as working for actual money.

This is why my current rate of pay is, and has to be, higher than my old rate of pay when I just went to work and got a paycheck. But I need 20 billable hours a week. Seriously. #1 daughter told me to quit hoping my current clients (including my Big Client, for whom I've been saving space on the calendar) will come up with that amount of work on a regular basis, and she's right. But I am thinking that oDesk might be more cost-effective than courting individual clients.

I did my first oDesk job in two hours, when the client had estimated 10, so even though I charge four times as much as the average provider, I was still a bargain. I haven't heard back from him since I sent my stuff in (he might also have knocked off early for Friday afternoon), but if he's happy with my work, that will be continuing. There were lots of new jobs today, too, including a fulltime job. I may go on over there and apply for things. If I can achieve 20 hours every week, then I can relax, and I'll still have 20 other work hours in which to court new clients or improve my XHTML or whatever.

In fact, my weeks sometimes have 50 hours of work and then all of a sudden I have 10. I'd like to even it out. Maybe that isn't realistic. I have been looking up to Client #2 and his ability to put things out on the calendar, but that may be an illusion. After all, my website still isn't live.

But today will really have to be a domestic day. The Holiday Grand Plan started this week, and I've done none of it. This is a good online plan for preparing for the holidays. If you just do what they say, you will be ready for all the holidays from Hallowe'en to New Years without feeling stressed or financially overwhelmed, and the house will look good when the guests arrive, too.

This is Porch Week, and I have only one day -- today -- to get that porch clean. This is also List Week, and I haven't done any of that, either. I'm thinking about making scarves for everyone on my list. I'm surprised that I'm thinking this, because I'm not that much of a scarf maker. I don't think I've made any scarves since the DNA scarves four years ago. However, I am currently making myself one, and really looking forward to wearing it. Also, I was in a conversation recently with a woman who had organized a silent auction at which the plain ordinary knitted scarves were the surprise bestseller, with people fainting in the aisles when they couldn't get one.

I made that part up. But there was an implication of that level of enthusiasm.

This is a plain stockinette scarf with a moss stitch border, in Touch Me. I may go today and see if they have one more skein of this stuff, because otherwise it will be a very short scarf.

#2 daughter suggested that a very short scarf can look quite smart with a scarf pin holding it together, and she could be right.

These pictures were taken on my porch, and I confess that, along with trying to give you an idea of the nice texture of this thing, which requires more photographic skill than I possess, I was also trying to avoid showing the current state of my porch.

However, since it is Porch Week and I will be cleaning it up today, I decided to go ahead and show you the Before Picture. Brace yourself.

Actually, a lot of my house looks like this right now.

Between having lots of work most weeks and having house guests most weekends, I haven't done much housework at all. I think it is possible that my house smells of Dogs. And I know for sure that most rooms of the house are messy. I say "most," but that is just in case there is some room I've forgotten about. I could probably say that the whole house is messy.

The HGP involves thoroughly cleaning all the rooms of the house in order, with this week being for the porch and tomorrow starting off Living Room Week, but I don't think that all the rooms can wait for their appointed weeks, so I plan to do quite a bit of housework today. I also plan to sit down with my collection of Christmas books and craft books and make those lists. This will be fun, and a good reward for having done the housework.

This is what I knitted last night.

#1 son has a headband like this, though in a different color, and a friend of his admired it. He asked me to make one for her for her birthday, which is coming up in a few days here.

He professes not to know what color her eyes are, but he vaguely recalls that she has brown hair. He thinks. So I think that this blue will look nice on her.

I don't completely believe that he has never looked at this girl, but he is a Man of Mystery, and carefully avoids allowing us to know anything about any girls he may or may not find interesting. On the other hand, #2 daughter doesn't agree with the handy website that assured me that my memory for faces is no worse than average. She suggests that people with normal levels of memory for faces don't take those online tests, and that said tests are perhaps not norm-referenced. So maybe #1 son really does like this girl enough to want to give her a handmade birthday gift, but still has never noticed her eye color. I know that I find young girls largely indistinguishable myself.

If you wanted to make one of these, you need only to cast on 10 stitches and work a long strip of 2x2 ribbing. How long? It depends on your recipient's head size, of course, but I made it as long as the 100th episode of Monk, and that seems about right.

Amazon Vine sent me a book of essays by comedian Michael Ian Black just in time for me to use them as an example for my comp class's Reflective Essay assignment, which really seemed like a bit of luck. The department chair stopped to chat in the hall and asked whether my class had thinned out yet. It's expected that the 25 will get down to 17 pretty soon, she said, but my class still has 23, with 2 who've been gone the last two days. I'm taking this as a sign that the class is going well. Of course, my decision to do so means that when it thins down to 17, I'll have to take it personally.

I drove to and from class on the freeway, with only limited spells of fear and trembling.

Then I came home and did my proposals. The oDesk guy wrote right back and gave me three hours of work for this week -- that is, today -- and if he likes my stuff, it'll be ongoing.

This was a slight surprise. I had thought of the first application as a tryout so I could figure out the system. I'm allowed to apply for 20 jobs at a time, based on my test scores. There was an education-related client wanting blogging, so it seemed like a good fit. However, when I went to check the details, I found that there were six other applicants, and all of them were cheaper than I was. When I sent my estimate, I acknowledged that, but pointed out that the client was estimating 10 hours a week and I could do it in three, so it wouldn't be that much more, and invited him to read my work. I also explained in a straightforward and factual manner why I felt I was his best choice.

Client #2 shot a blog post back to me earlier this week for sounding too braggartly (that is, I wrote it in such a way that he felt it would sound as though he were bragging), so I was trying to be careful about that. But, you know, there are cases in which people won't know someone is good at something without being told. They just won't have that information. I try to stick to facts: I've done this, I have these skills, not "I'm great!"

Lots of the providers at oDesk describe themselves with phrases like "fabulous three-degreed writer" and "hardcore world-class consultant." This seems over the top. If nothing else, if you are truly fabulous and world-class, then why are you peddling your wares on oDesk instead of relaxing while your agent does that for you? On the other hand, there are people there working for $3.33 an hour, so I guess you have to say something to clarify why you think you're worth more. I just hope that the people toiling for $10 per article live in a place where that feeds the family for a day.

ODesk tells providers to choose a figure below which we will not work, and to "write it down somewhere." It doesn't go on our profiles, but I guess oDesk is in some ways like eBay for computer guys. Maybe they worry that, in the frenzy of bidding to write that series of articles on natural cleaning products, we'll get carried away and offer to work for castoff shoes.

I am hoping that I will be able to figure out the time-logging system today when I do my three hours. oDesk takes a screenshot every ten minutes. Presumably this will demonstrate that I am using Word and not shopping. Then it also measures the percentage of the time that my fingers are on the keys or the mouse, which I guess keeps me from leaving my article on the screen while I go get a cup of coffee. It is also possible to have a webcam, which I guess would show that I was concentrating, or not having my cat do the typing for me, something.

My log has just popped up to inform me that I have been doing private computer stuff since 5:39, so I guess it's working. And I also just got my job opening announcements, and applied to write the website content for a new company making waste-free lunch containers for schoolchildren. There are already nine applicants, with an average price of $13.27 per hour. I trotted out my environmentalist/educator/parent credentials for them, and we'll see what happens.

What do you think? Does it sound like eBay? I've never been there myself.

At the very least, if oDesk turns out to be a place where I can always go to pick up work when I am not busy, I'll find that relaxing. I used to live in a neighborhood where the Hispanic men would just go stand on a street corner in the morning if they wanted work, and people in trucks would come pick them up, as many as they needed. ODesk feels like that.

So I have my three hours for ODesk today, and papers to grade, and Client #4 to look after, but I am seriously hoping to take some time for the HGP and a long walk and maybe even some lolling around. Or housework and groceries.

TGIF!

Yesterday had ups and downs. Mostly ups.

I began the day feeling slightly stressed by the fact that I had no paying work for the day, a very rare occurence. There will come a time when I will think, "Oh, good, an opportunity to do some of those business tasks" when that happens. In fact, I do think that in the abstract. Not only are there things like transferring sprawled notes about business expenses into my software and clearing up files, but I also have skills to improve and software to learn and state history books sitting around waiting for me to decide what to do with them. When I've developed sufficient faith and quit being a wimp, I'll perhaps even take a PSD or a hike on such days. Just not yet.

Instead, I've been fiddling around waiting to hear from my Big Client about how much of the time I've saved for them they might actually want, and not seeking out new clients for fear they'll want all of it, and fretting for fear they'll want so little of it that I won't be able to pay #1 son's tuition, because time and money are like Scylla and Charibdis here.

Then I encountered oDesk, a sort of clearing house for web writers and developers and so on. People like me can go sign up there and then folks who need someone like me can go shopping and get someone to write or code or whatever for them. The "o" may stand for "outsource" or even "offshore" since a lot of their choices on forms include "I can code in English but cannot speak English comfortably" and stuff like that. However, you set your own price and they guarantee payment, and it seems like a respectable outfit.

It also seems like a useful resource. After all, if you need witty finance articles for your company newsletter, or inserts for your diet meal shipments that discuss nutrition without specifying any foods, or someone to write text for your Adult Reality Webcam site, what will you do? An ad in your local paper is hardly likely to net you the rather specialized skills you need. I just got today's announcements from oDesk, and they include someone to write smoking fetish articles, someone to write hundreds of articles on all different topics for $10 a pop, and someone to ghost write articles on divorce in Texas, so I'd say there's just something for everybody there.

So I signed up at oDesk and took some tests. They list your scores on your profile, so the shoppers can browse around and find someone who did well on the XHTML and phone ettiquette sections, or whatever the case may be. I had the highest ever score on the English structure (that is, I got them all right, which I assume many native speakers do, but I got a little blue ribbon icon saying "Top Score" and a note telling me to "check out your stylish new profile"), and top 10 on the others, so I put in my wholesale price and went ahead and applied for a blogging job that looked very well suited to me. Not the Adult Reality Webcam one. This is an education thing, and they'd be lucky to have me. But the wholesale price makes sense, because they're not getting any extras. oDesk takes a screenshot every ten minutes to guarantee to the buyer that you're not cruising eBay on their nickel, so it's definitely not going to be the kind of thing where they can call and discuss their marketing strategy with me in my free time.

Within an hour, I had a response from the buyer, asking for an estimate to do a post a week at each of his three bogs. So that's not bad at all. If it turns out that oDesk is a steady source of work for me, then I can just relax about my individual clients and enjoy whatever comes up.

Speaking of which, I had a new local person ask me for a proposal. So I may have two new gigs once I send in my proposals to them today after class.

On the other hand, the IT guy from church stood me up. No message, no email waiting for me when I got home, nothing. I was a bit miffed, I'll admit. I don't have so much free time that it means nothing for me to wait for someone for half an hour. It also means that the problem is not solved. And something very similar is coming up with another potential new client, for whom I will also be doing a proposal this afternoon. I have therapist clients. Maybe they could take up couples counseling for webmasters and site owners. I don't really feel qualified to do that.

Otherwise, there were all kinds of nice things. I had a message from the college where I'm teaching, saying they'd schedule me next year in my own county, and give me an 8:00 am class. I can just stop at the gym on the way home, and still get to the computer by 10:00 every day. I hadn't made any requests, since I don't even know my schedule for the rest of this season and wasn't ready to commit myself for next term, but that it an excellent arrangement, and I'm enjoying the current class very much, so I agreed.

 And look what a pretty website I'm going to have! The Computer Guy hired another developer, and she will be converting it into code first thing. I don't know how long that takes, but I'm guessing it'll be live by next week. I intend to have fun with plying the Dark Art on it.

(Do me a favor and don't look at my name, okay? That's a secret.)

Or, if websites aren't to your taste, then you might like the pretty roses from my thicket of roses. The edges of Gustav came by here yesterday and today, and they are a bit bedraggled from being rained on, but lovely anyway.

My husband stood gazing out at the grass when he got home from work yesterday.

"I should have cut the grass on Monday morning," he said. "It's been raining since then, and the grass is happy. 'I'm getting taller and taller!"

This was said in a grass-like voice.

"'No one can cut me now!'"

I gazed with him on the happy, triumphant grass.

There is also another melon growing under the basketball standard. We can't pick it till we've had a couple of dry days, or the flavor will be watered down, so I hope it doesn't become over-ripe before that happens.

However, I am enjoying the rain.

The big news from yesterday is that I drove on the freeway, by myself, to class and back. I saved an hour in this way, but then I spent it at the grocery store. My sons felt that was a net gain. I also stopped by Client #3's place, where she was conducting a study group and greeted me with, "What would you say is the difference between self-worth and self-esteem?" When I got home, I was very tired; I assume that it was all that clenching of the hands on the steering wheel. I can continue doing it, though, I think, and that may be the main benefit of teaching the class -- I might be calmer about the drive by December.

I had not gone to the gym before class because I had computer work to do, and then afterwards just as I got into my workout gear I had a call from The Empress. She came over and we had tea and conversation, and finished that just in time for me to get ready for the American Association of University Women meeting.

Since I live in a small town, I knew some of the women there. One of them greeted me with a questioning look and I said, "We've met before. A long time ago, at the university."

"Yes," she agreed, "your daughter was in charge of the English program I was on the board for."

"That was me. I've just gotten older."

And in fact, I was my daughters' age when I met that woman. I was glad to see her again. The meeting was interesting and well run. Five of the delegates from our state to the Democratic National Convention were from this chapter of the AAUW. Marie Curie's research was supported by a grant from the organization (though not, presumably, this chapter). They won three awards for being top in the state. These things just came up in the discussion. They weren't being especially smug or anything. Though there was a little bit of tough talk about the Hot Springs chapter.

They need some help on their website. I may join them and volunteer it.

I did have a call from a current client asking me to take on another person. I may do so. The continued lack of a contract from the Big Client for whom I've been saving space is making me nervous about paying #1 son's tuition.

After the meeting, La Bella and I went on to the Institute for Interfaith Dialogue's annual friendship dinner. Half the table was AAUW women, plus one lady from the League of Women Voters. The other half of the table had three lovely Japanese girls in fancy black dresses. Had I been close enough to explain that my interest in their dresses was about fiberosity and not about staring at their cleavage, I'd have more interesting dressmaking details to report.

There was also a young man with them. I had seen, on the breast pocket of his shirt as he was putting on his name tag, "E=MC2," so I thought he was a physicist. It turned out that he worked for a company called EMC, so he was actually an IT guy. The girls were microbiology students. I guess I had mentally added the math symbols to his shirt, though I couldn't check on that, since his name tage covered his logo.

Since we had sat down on opposite halves of the round table, divided by the centerpiece, we conducted separate conversations most of the evening, and I was sorry not to learn anything about them, though I enjoyed talking with the women on my side of the table.

We had a call to prayer sung by a member of the local Turkish community. There was a translation on a screen, but I would have liked to ask about the musical aspects of it.

After a couple of speeches, it occurred to me that we perhaps were not supposed to be discussing NCLB and Sarah Palin, as we were, but instead might be intended to have interfaith dialogues. I proposed this, and we learned that our number included a Buddhist on my right and a Quaker on my left, as well as a Presbyterian, and me, the resident Presbyterian at a Methodist church. The other side of the table was by this time speaking in Japanese, so I still know nothing about their faiths.

We then had some more speeches. The chancellor of the local university told us that he was often asked to speak on subjects about which he knew nothing, and that this was no exception. Mohja Kahf read a very funny essay on Ramadan (I hadn't even realized we were in Ramadan, until the magic moment of 7:38 began the fast-break of dinner). We drank some amazingly good coffee, perhaps the best coffee I've ever had in my life. I looked around to see whether there were any members of the Turkish community whom I could ask about the details of the wonderful coffee, but with no luck. I am assuming that this is special coffee and you have to know some Turks in order to get it.

Then La Bella and I walked back to the car in the rain.

I woke up at 3:00 this morning, with my long to-do list on my mind, and worries about finances. I haven't done that in quite a while, and I recognized immediately that it was a foolish waste of time. Still, I couldn't get back to sleep, so I got up and wrote down all the things I need to do today and I am getting an early start on them. I have a meeting with the church IT guy this afternoon, for which I have to learn a piece of software. I have papers to grade and things to review and my ODesk application to finish up, just in case I never hear from the Big Client again and need more work. I have to get to the gym and housework and the HGP, because for heaven's sake it's Wednesday and I haven't done any of the that stuff yet. I need to ply the Dark Art on behalf of my own sites, as well as my Dark Art Lite clients, I have birthday cards to send out, I need to contact the new lead, and I think that if I will take the time to do my GTD processing, I won't be as likely to wake up at 0 dark thirty in future.

Onward!

Cathy Alter's Up for Renewal is her story of how she improved her life by following advice in women's magazines. She seems to be a bit of an underachiever when it comes to self-improvement. Her first month, she took her lunch to work, having learned from Real Simple how to wrap a sandwich in Saran Wrap. The second month, she spent a night in a tent. The third month, she used a list from Glamour of what clothes you need to own to pare down her wardrobe (what kind of woman needs to pare down to seven bras?).

In the course of this, she is starting up a romance. Since she isn't doing much in the way of self-improvement, the story of the book is inclined to center on the new romance. It is clear that this new romance is just one of many, and it is not at all clear that the new self emerging from the life-changing experience of wrapping sandwiches is actually making this relationship into a completely different thing from the long long string before it, but that seems to be where she's going.

At one point, she references an article from O about the Index of Dread. The idea is that you look, every evening, at your plans for the next day and assign them all numbers on the Index of Dread. Then you look at what you did that day and assign them all numbers on how much you enjoyed them. The idea, I think, is that you will see that you dreaded some things that you ended up enjoying.

I see a couple of problems here. First, why are you dreading your plans every day? If you are working on Overcoming Agoraphobia, okay. You have to do some things that you dread just to keep from sinking deeper into agoraphobia, and possibly just in order to conduct your life with some degree of normalcy. But otherwise, it seems as though a life so filled with dread as this exercise implies is just a badly-run life.

Second, this assumption that people dread things out of habit and they're really not that bad seems flawed. For example, I am sort of planning on driving on the freeway today.

I made the drive with my kids (it is, irrationally enough, easier for me and for other agoraphobes to do scary things with other people than alone) on Saturday, and survived. It took about one third as long as driving surface roads. It would therefore, my daughter pointed out, save gas and reduce my carbon footprint. The actual scary parts of the road are few and don't last long.

"This road, like most roads," she said caustically, "never leaves the ground. Oh -- correction --" and here her brother joined her for a chorus of snarkiness, "like all roads."

So I am thinking that I may drive on the freeway to my class. I am dreading it. The Saturday drive was just about as enjoyable as I had anticipated -- that is, not at all. I know what degree of neurosis it requires to dread driving on a perfectly normal road. What degree of neurosis does it require to dread doing so when you are actually going to enjoy it?

Maybe this is intended for people who have very exciting lives. They plan, perhaps, that tomorrow they will eat a porcupine, poke strangers with their umbrella, and go skydiving. When they discover that they quite enjoyed these things, it gives them strength for the next day's plans: to apply to work as a gunrunner, begin flamenco dance classes, and and tell their boss exactly what they think of him.

I took yesterday off almost completely. I did Client #2's blog post, which he sent back to me saying that it was elitist and braggartly, so I redid it. This was good, since I am today handing back papers to my students, some with C grades and all with suggestions for changes to be made. I will be able to tell them, in our initial "What have you written since I last saw you?" conversation, about that, so they'll know that I share the experience.

I also graded their papers, played Scrabble with the kids, and watched the news with my husband. I was kind of elitist about the TV news in Sunday's conversation with Client #2, frankly. However, I have to report that the focus on Sarah Palin in yesterday's TV news was all about her daughter's unwed pregnancy. There was one woman who attempted, unsuccessfully, to get one of her people to name a single important decision Palin had ever made. She wasn't being rude about it. In fact, I'd say she was giving him an opportunity to brag on his boss, and he couldn't come up with anything. Leonidas reports that Palin believes that climate change is a hoax, a position that is right up there with believing that the moon landing was a hoax. I never considered voting for McCain anyway, so it may not be any of my business.

I also did some knitting. On our shopping trip, I saw Muench Yarns' Touch Me for half price -- one or two skeins each of leftover colors -- and bought a couple. It makes a wonderful plush chenille fabric. I'm making a plain stockinette scarf with moss stitch edges, because the texture of the yarn swamps any texture you add to the knitting. It matches my green interview suit.

Something I didn't get around to was starting the HGP. It's List Week and Porch Week. Supposing that I get home from class and don't have any work waiting in my email, then I may spend the afternoon working on those things.

I also need to finish signing up at ODesk, since I have yet to hear from my Big Client. I sent out my end-of-month invoices and they came to the amount I wanted them to, but I currently have nothing to invoice mid-month.

I'm also going with La Bella to a meeting of the Association of University Women and an interfaith dinner. I am dreading that slightly, in a recognizably irrational way. Maybe a 1 on the dread scale, just a "Maybe I'd rather stay home" feeling. I expect to enjoy it quite a bit, so I won't be giving up much time to the dreading.

The duet went well. It was "Song of Psalms" by Ed Harris. Really lovely, surprising harmonies. My little solo went well, too, and the processional hymn went better than you might have thought. #2 daughter led a call-and-response song from the balcony and the congregation joined right in.

#2 daughter felt that we were very disorganized, but this is because she has higher standards.

Following the services, we had a business meeting with the Computer Guy at the local coffee house, followed by lunch.

The meeting was enlivened by #2 daughter's kindly explanation of the special characteristics of musicians about which a Computer Guy would need to be warned. The funny part about this was that I had already given him that same speech, when I asked him about taking on the project in question. Almost in the same words. We hadn't rehearsed.

There was also a section in which the two visual processors in the group talked to one another right over my head, having already connected on the visual-spatial level where I can't go. They were discussing frosty blues and levels of contrast, and there was a brief aside in my direction when I tried to join in ("Fibermom, marble isn't a color"), but then I stayed out of it until we got back to the abstract realm,where I belong.

May I just say that the other principal of the group, when we reported to him by phone later, responded very well to the notion of marble? He's an auditory processor, like me. The vagueness of his discussions of visual images is very like mine, so I relate to him on this.

"He doesn't have a mental image of what it should look like," I explained. "He just wants you to do something excellent."

"Shock and Awe," clarified #2 daughter.

In any case, the Computer Guy had excellent ideas about how to meet the needs of the organization in question, and how to do it within their budget.

We went on to the nice restaurant Janalisa introduced me to after that, and dispensed with business. We discussed mutual friends, HDTV, sports, politics, and whether #2 daughter's crazy neighbors' reliance on her is my fault or not. This took a couple of hours.

We came home and I made a nice peach upside down cake with plenty of butter and cream, chicken with provencal vegetables, and brown rice. Lazing around took place. We also played Scrabble, #2 daughter and #1 son and I. #2 daughter won. She always does.

You might think I'd be likely to win at Scrabble because I know lots of words. Nope. I get swayed by my desire to play a cool word, and don't strategize. M. Bassoon has argued that #2 daughter should restrain herself from strategizing when playing with lesser mortals, but I don't see that. It might lessen the number of people who refuse to play with her, though. The Computer Guy suggested Jargon Scrabble, in which you'd be allowed to play words like "HTML" and "CSS." #1 son thought that should allow slang as well.

"If it's jargon Scrabble," I said, "it would have to be words assoicated with a job."

It could, #1 son figured, be Jargon Scrabble for pimps.

But if we had been playing Jargon Scrabble last night, being a group of musicians, then we could have used "ppp" and "sfz." This might not have helped me, since what I really needed was a word like "eqeeee."

It's labor day. I have a regular Monday deadline for Client #2 which I need to meet, I think, even though it is Labor Day. This is because I got up this morning to a work-related message which he had posted at 10:30 last night, so it doesn't look as though he's taking the weekend off.

Other than that, I'm planning to take the day off. I hope to badger some subset of my family into joining me for a hike and a cookout. Past experience suggests that, while this was what we usually did when they were small, now they will prefer to loll around in the air conditioned indoors while I cook for them.

I hope that you all have the day off and will enjoy it.