Last night I was working on Salt Peanuts when I came to a section int he instructions that says to fit in a couple of short rows "about every four rows." There's a bunch of "about" in this section, which is the collar. I don't mind "about" instructions, but this is one side of the collar and it's supposed to match the other side.

It's hard enough for me to match the sides when there are actual specific instructions, let alone when it's full of "about."

I ended up pulling out about five inches of it and starting again. We'll see what happens.

My office space is working out well.  #1 son can play piano and watch TV. All the animals come hang out in here with me, for some reason, but they're quiet.

I'm gradually bringing stuff in, "stuff" so far being my box of current files and the swaybacked top section of the ancient desk I was using.

"Ancient" is the wrong word. If it were actually ancient, it would be better. It's about fifteen years old, though, and it was a cheap prefab computer desk to begin with, so its keyboard tray falls out.

We have three other desks in the house, including the one I'm using now, and all of them are hand-me-downs or curbside rescues. The current one doesn't fall apart while in use, but it also doesn't have a file drawer. Someday when I don't have tuition and dentist bills, I'll get a new desk.

Today I have to go get a crown, speaking of dental bills. The appointment is quite early, so it won't have time to ruin my day beforehand. It may ruin my day after. I don't know. I'd rather not find out, but that isn't an option.

Buckingham's point about women's lower level of happiness when they have fewer choices isn't a plea to return to a more traditional way of life. Instead, he's saying something about choices: the more possibilities you have, the less likely you are to be able to make a choice without regret.

CD agrees with him, and she's a counselor, so she should know.

Buckingham's point is that we should identify our strengths, recognize our "strong moments," and intentionally imbalance our lives by paying more attention to the things that make us feel strong and less atttention to the things that make us feel weak.

For me, the strong moments when I get to figure out a plan for a client should get more attention -- and so should the strong moments when I'm revelling in knitting and a novel. The weak moments when I'm panicking over a site's late launch or a client's failure to pay me? They shouldn't get attention.

In a relationship, he says, there are going to be imperfections. You don't have to deny them -- but you also don't have to analyze them and obssess over them. Instead, analyze and obssess over the strong moments in the relationship, and you'll find that those strong moments will increase and the weak moments will lessen.

If there are no strong moments in a job, relationship, or volunteer position, then Buckingham says to "relinquish it."

This reminds me of Suzette Haden Elgins's "Whatever you feed will grow" principle.

Buckingham also offers a complement to the Strengthsfinder superpowers test: a life roles test for women.

I came up as Teacher and Creator, which was not astonishing to me. Check it out and tell me whether you felt that the test pinpointed you.

Yesterday I did a cool job which is a secret. A couple of hours of website content writing, quite fun, and I got to feel like a spy.

Apart from that, and a bit of website updating, I didn't work. I watched "Everybody Wants to be Italian" on Instant Watch, hemmed #1 son's pants, baked some oatmeal cookies, read... It was nice. I have so much stuff that I need to do that it's hard to relax, but I promised #1 daughter that I'd try.

I've heard from the kids a couple of times, but mostly "I can't talk right now -- we're watching elephants paint!" and "Can't talk -- we're trying to photograph penguins on the way to Harry Potter!" I guess they're having fun.

I'd really like to stay home this morning and loll around, but I have to go to church. I think I actually have a meeting at church this afternoon, as well. So I guess I'd better get dressed and eat breakfast and stuff like that.

Marcus Buckingham, in the book I'm reading, reports that cross-cultural studies show that women are less happy when they have more life choices and more freedom than when they follow traditional paths. Also that moms are less happy than childless women. Also that women get less happy as they get older.

I haven't tracked down his support for these claims, though I'm a mother of four getting older by the minute and I'm quite happy. I'm also aware of the large body of evidence suggesting that people are happy or unhappy with very little reference to their circumstances. Either we have an innate happiness "setpoint" or we are as happy as we make up our minds to be, depending how you interpret the data.

Personally, I'm inclined to be happy and I can't seem to help it. I've had some very difficult times in my life, but I'm practically always happy anyway.

This means that I'm not fit to judge Buckingham's claims about happiness and women, obviously. I'll be interested to see what he advises, though. Not getting older? Not having children? And aren't children kind of a part of the traditional approach that made women happier?

I'll let you know where he goes with this.

The kids left yesterday, so we now have only three people in our house. This will take some adjustment.
The site that I've been fretting over is launched, and the newest one has its contract signed and deposit paid. This is perfect. I'm hoping #1 daughter, as Project Manager, can keep things going like that.

I have a long list of domestic stuff to do today. I also have a new odesk client who said last night that he would be needing 4-5k words from me today and would send over a document. Hasn't happened yet, but it might, so I guess I can't just close my office door and ignore the computer, which I was sort of imagining doing.

The computer is in the West bedroom now, so I could do that. I've updated my website and answered my email this morning, and have sausage cooking for my husband right now.

This is not a perfect workspace yet., of course.

For one thing, this is the view out the window.

I really like to be able to look out the window while I work. Or while thinking, when I work.

I may need to move the CPU. On the other hand, #1 daughter, who is highly insightful, says that if I have a flat student desk like this one, I'll make stacks of things. She thinks I need to bring in one of the computer desks with cubbyholes. She may be right.

There are currently two desks in our living room with no computers. We need to remove them. It was bad enough when they had computers on them. Then our living room looked like the lair of a computer guy. Now it looks pointless.

I do like the light in this room.

Some decorating is in order, or furniture movement or something. Also I need to quilt and bind this quilt, which is quite a marvelous quilt and deserves something better than to be sitting around with safety pins in it for years and years.

There is also back to school preparation to be done. We need to buy paper and stuff. I need to find out where my classes are being held and when they start, and I have to get my online class ready. School may begin soon, for all I know.

I also have to figure out how to feed only three people. It's grocery day, and I'm at a loss. What are you supposed to buy when you only have three people to feed? Just less of the same things?

Hard to believe I'm finding this confusing, I know.

The kids are heading off today, so the boys moved furniture around and we started making one of the bedrooms into an office.

Today's pictures show the first steps in that process.

We put the day bed into the West room. This way #2 son can sleep there when he's home, and the girls can, too, when they visit, and I suppose I can loll around there and read my CSS manuals.

I need to make some snazzy cushions for the back of it, and a dust ruffle or something, and it might also be good for me to finish the quilt.

We pulled the tall bookcase from the hall and put it into the West bedroom for my work-related books.

#1 son's method for this was to remove all the paperback novels which were on this bookcase and pile them all over the floor in my bedroom.

This meant that I had to stop working and find some place for all of them.

  But it'll be nice to have all the design books and software manuals and stuff together and accessible.

My husband was troubled by the fact that the cord of the CD player crosses the front of the bookcase.

I may put up a little shelf or sconce or something for it, if he can't adjust his thinking on the matter.

All this stuff is a bit humorous when you consider that the desk area of the bedroom is just as #1 son left it.

He doesn't like this room. He considers the wall treatment girly.

So he's going into his younger bro's room since he's off to college, and leaving his erstwhile room for me.

The desk has a TV, and athletic shoes, and a volleyball, and ossified chocolate bars, and is also the dog's favorite place to hang out.

This is going to have to change. All of it.

The desk is also quite shabby. I asked what had happened to it, and the boys shrugged and said, "We got pocket knives."

So there's plenty still to do.

We're planning to move the computers today, though, while there are still lots of people in the house to participate in the ritualistic carryings on if it doesn't work right when we get everything plugged in in the new spots.

The delayed website is all set and should go live as soon as The Computer Guy checks his email. The new client is making the deposit this afternoon. Onward and upward.

I started out slightly stressed yesterday and progressed to totally stressed.

Here's how:

The day began with an email from a client who wanted to discuss his blog. I had two things to do yesterday morning, but I know this client, and I knew that he'd worry till he heard from me.

So I just raced through a couple of blog posts before calling him, and while we chatted I dealt with a group of emails on a site that should have launched over the weekend. There have been tech troubles, and then the designer couldn't get the files up. So he sent them to me and I also couldn't get them up. So I sent it to The Computer Guy, who uploaded them. Whereupon I found that the site had a variety of errors.

I went in to change them, and found that some were graphics, and couldn't be changed. I emailed the designer about that as #2 son asked whether I was ready to go to the dentist, and it turned out that there was an error in the cutting. So I raced to do the text changes, and couldn't put the files. So I called the computer guy, who told me where to look to make the changes that might make it possible.

At which point, with #2 son and #1 daughter standing waiting for me, I got caught in one of those Vortex of Doom situations, where I couldn't get away from the error message without putting in the password and couldn't put in the password till the error message closed, which it wouldn't do because I hadn't put in the password.

I think I may have said "damn it."

So we left for the dentist with a live site full of errors.

In the dentist's office I texted The Computer Guy, who took down the site till it could get fixed, and I also brooded about the two things I hadn't gotten done that morning. In the panic before leaving, I had failed to take a book with me and therefore I had to be present for the cleaning, something which I avoid, and they also told me that I have to get a crown.

The dentist's office people took the position that I was lucky. Most people have had crowns before my age, apparently, and many people have half a dozen of them, and here I was only having one. My insurance will pay half, too. The staff there behaved as though they were giving me good news, and as though having to shell out $612 for a crown next week, not to mention actually having to get the crown, which will probably involve dental work of some kind, was actually so much less than I deserved that I should feel blessed.

We got home around 2:00, and I tried once more to fix the problems with the late-launching site before giving up. The Computer Guy had refused to work with me on the new client, on the grounds that he doesn't like her software, and I hope he feels guilty now that he sees what I go through when I have to work with other designers.

Seriously, I spent some time in discussion with The Art Teacher, and he agreed to work on the new prospect's site, and gave me an estimate, and #1 daughter wrote up a proposal for the client, and we got it off to the client, and should hear back today on whether they want to proceed or not.

So I went on to the afternoon work, because I had deadlines. I did blogs for a couple of clients at lightning speed, and then set up a client's Twitter account and listed them at the Twitter directories and so forth, and then got an email saying they'd decided in the marketing meeting not to do Twitter after all, but thanks, so I went in and deleted them.

By this point, it was time for dinner. #2 son had grilled steaks and mashed some potatoes and brought out a bag of cherries, and I was very grateful.

Off I went to choir practice, where we're working on some nice music and I got to spend some time with CD trading work-related whines. Hers are always so much better than mine.

I have a site launching late and with errors? She was called by the police in the middle of the night to clean up a pool of blood from one of the residents who sliced open his wrist.

She also has a bunch of crowns.

Obviously, I should quit whining.

But before I do, let me mention that #2 son is leaving tomorrow with #1 daughter. They are going to visit #2 daughter, and then head down to #1's place in the Deep South before taking #2 son to school. I'll have only one left at home, and #2 son is the baby of the family, and also sometimes cooks dinner.

Yes, well, I have to catch up on yesterday's work. No further time to whine or to brood, so it's a good thing I got it all off my chest.

Today #2 son and I have dental appointments.

I'm feeling a bit stressed.

This is my fourth appointment or meeting for the week, which is enough to make me feel a little stressed. I also have a million things going on, a situation which #1 daughter is supposed to be fixing, just by her existence or something.

#2 son and I took the dogs for a walk last night just about moonrise. It was very nice.

Actually, everything yesterday was good. I went for a walk on my own first thing, and then worked on my Dark Art Lite clients for a while, amid showers of emails and phone calls about various stuff, and fixed up some web content, and sent good news to clients and had an interesting and potentially profitable meeting with a prospective new client and contacted the various designers I'm working with about various jobs. Which doesn't sound interesting, but it was.

I bet I'll feel better once the dentist visit is over.

Yesterday I had a meeting at the college where I teach. It was an annual evaluation, since I've been there for a year, and it went smoothly. The guy I met with has lots of experience with teaching online and had useful suggestions for me, and of course it was fun to hang out in the hallway talking about what we did on our summer vacations.

On the way back, #1 daughter and I stopped off for brunch and a conversation about her Five Year Plan. We have a group Five Year Plan, and I knew about #2's Five Year Plan, but I wondered about #1's. I want to make sure that our business plan works for everyone.

Back to the house, then, where I had three articles to write before an afternoon meeting with a designer. The meeting was fun, and I feel optimistic about the website we were meeting about. I have four sites about to launch, and I'm hoping they'll go neatly, one a week. We're meeting today with a prospective new client, and #1 is supposed to contact all the various prospective clients I haven't had time to get back with, and fill up the calendar for August and September.

Ah, yes, the articles. What with assorted interruptions, they didn't all get done before the meeting, so I had to come back after the meeting and work some more. I also had payment issues of various kinds. And loud boys wrestling all over the place. And it was too hot. I didn't finish till 9:00.

Really, by the end of the evening I was feeling somewhat cross.

I'm over it now.

I'm in such a hurry today, since I have to get to my meeting in the next county...

I'll just say quickly that I think my girls are going to be valuable team members. Yesterday we met about an internal project, using it as an example, and then after #2 went home, I get a query from a web visitor and #1 and I responded to that. In both cases, they were useful colleagues seeing ways the process could be changed to increase ROI.

I guess I'd better get dressed...

The girls both arrived on Friday night, and we got started with our business meeting. The object is to get all the planning finished this weekend so we can get everyone to work on Monday. #2 daughter had already been working for me for about a month, and got her first paycheck yesterday. Now we need to get #1 in, without reducing my income to the point where I can't cover the boys' tuition.

I have four websites about to launch, two with The Computer Guy, and two for which I've been the project manager as well as the copywriter. This is about what I've been doing for the past season -- four websites a month. My income on these has ranged from nothing (this summer has seen the completion of two of the pro bono jobs I took on last August, and I assure you that's not my fault) to several hundred dollars. #1's job is going to be to keep us doing four websites a month smoothly, without my having to work 65 hours a week.

We walked through the processes on the current websites, and #1 assures me that it doesn't have to be that complicated. We'll see. I hope she's right. It's very simple when I do content for one of the firms I work with. Not when it's me taking one of my clients to The Computer Guy, as this month's two have been, but when he hires me to write a site that he's building, or when The Northerners do so, then I just have a pleasant afternoon's work and make a couple hundred.

#1 also thinks I should raise my prices. I've agreed to some extent. I'm not ready to raise my hourly rate -- I'm right about average for my profession -- but I'm prepared to let her turn some unbillable hours into billable ones.

If we had capital for our business, it would clearly be a good thing to hire her right away at a salary and let her use her skills to grow the business. As it stands, we've agreed to a modest sum, the same as I'm paying #2 daughter, per project. She'll have unbillable hours just as #2 and I have, and by next year we may all be reaping the benefits.

We also got haircuts yesterday, and spent some time giving advice to the hairdresser, who ought to have a website, and then we went to lunch with my parents.

That was fun, as always. We had the kids on one side of the table and the parents and grandparents on the other side, so I got to admire my kids and think how smart and handsome they all were throughout lunch.

I don't think I'm bragging here. We all think our kids are handsome and smart, right? It's adaptive.

However, I am going to brag a little. I got my evaluations from the spring term. They had arrived in the mail while I was gone. I'm going tomorrow to discuss them with the program chair. I got really good evaluations, and cheering comments. I read some of them out to the kids, I was so excited about it, but the kids were neither interested nor impressed. Canadian National shared her comments today, though, and I know that you can leave if you don't want to read this, so I'm going to share some of my favorites with you:

"She has been by far the best teacher I've ever had."
"I highly recommend this teacher. She pushes the students to write. She does this in the best way imaginable: by giving us hope and confidence."
"She made learning fun and easy."

This is going to make my meeting tomorrow less stressful, even though I do have to drive up there on the freeway. Since I hadn't previously been called in to discuss my evaluations, I was a little nervous. It may just be an annual thing.

In any case, I have added some pictures of knitting here, since I actually got some done. At the top is Salt Peanuts in its current form, as I begin the lacy collar,  and below it is the scarf I made on my trip. It's about 90 degrees here, so I don't plan to wear that scarf any time soon, but it turned out well, and I'm glad to have a finished object for 2009. Sigh.