Up at 4:00 with my husband again. It's raining.

I quit work early yesterday -- by about 10 minutes. I was feeling glum. I talked to my daughters, and they were both feeling moody, too. I think it's being tired.

I had a good day yesterday, actually. I got more assignments from the Arts Center, which I love. I sent in four assignments. I bought a happy green teakettle to replace the one my husband burnt up, and enjoyed the spring weather while doing it. I really had nothing to feel glum about.

But by 4:50 yesterday I was feeling frustrated about tech problems with the New Yorker's site, and disgruntled about an unimportant exchange with The Computer Guy, and stressed about not getting responses from people, and uninspired about grading student papers...

It was time to quit work, that's all.

I went out to the porch and enjoyed the scent of violets while talking to my equally moody daughters. I went out for takeaway from the local Chinese restaurant. I was in line in my car for the drive-up window, and could see the hands of the lady who hands out the food. Nothing else, just her hands like birds flying around the window when she gestured.

"Hey, girl!" she said when I drove up. "Today's special: beautiful weather. Tomorrow: blizzard."

We had a new Jackie Chan movie to watch while eating Hunan chicken and pork fried rice. Then I went to bed and read Elaine Viets while my menfolks went out to parties.

Today, I plan to do housework and grocery shopping. A little bit of work, of course, but I think moving around more will be good. Maybe a walk, if there's space between the rain and the predicted snow.

We have violets blooming. We also have snow predicted for the weekend. Just for variety, I guess.

Last night, the choirlet did a bit of a sing-through of the Cokesbury hymnal. This is a venerable hymnal containing bizarre songs like "Whispering Hope" and "Pentecostal Power." Several of the ladies knew a lot of these songs. One of the ladies used to go out and sing them to the cows on the farm when she was a child, to call them in for milking. I think those were lucky cows.

We were talking about heaven. I have no mental image of heaven, but the ladies had seen things on Oprah and read books by people who had died, gone to heaven, and returned.

I never believe stuff like that -- I mean, I don't read it or watch talk shows, so I have no direct experience of it, but when people tell me these things I feel very skeptical.

The ladies said that the music in heaven was very good. Apparently, everyone can sing perfectly in tune in heaven. That makes sense to me. If there is in fact a physical or quasi-physical space called heaven, then the music ought to be amazing.

I've been working normal hours. I've also been trying out Salesforce. I have two face to face meetings with new clients this week. True, I haven't yet either picked up my glasses or gotten my hair cut, but we can't have everything in this world.

I'm still checking my email after hours on my Blackberry, so I know I have a passel of jobs waiting for me, but that's what calendars are for.

If you are self-employed, by the way, you might want to check out Mavenlink. They're a simple online tool for managing projects, and they offer group insurance. I haven't really been able to find anything out about them -- all their reviews online seem to be paid and contain nothing but the stuff from their website -- but it's an intriguing concept.

Isn't that pretty?

It's one of the website building projects I'm currently working on. The one my company is doing, to be specific. I'm also writing websites for five agencies, and  a bunch of other stuff as well, but this one is in-house start to finish.

Our goal is to do twelve of these this year. I'd also like to see us do marketing kits at the same frequency.

I think we're also supposed to have 10 social media campaigns. I personally write a website a week on a pretty steady basis, and blog for half a dozen companies every week. I teach seven college classes a year, too.

Once I get my business systems in place, I'll be able to do all these things, keep my house in a reasonably pleasant condition, travel a bit, enjoy plenty of music and needlework, spend time with my friends and family, read, and take up hiking.

Today I have to make a bunch of phone calls and set up a lunch meeting and write an architect's website and finish up a draft for a manufacturer's site. I also have an "advertorial" to do for a hospital, grading, and blogging. I'm planning on housework.

I need to pick up my new glasses and arrange for a haircut. I'm going on a roadtrip next weekend with Janalisa, who is always very soignee, so I need to look as soignee as I personally can manage.

#1 son got this picture for me. I might add him to the force.

I worked all weekend, and I still didn't get everything done. However, I did get messages from the universe.

Do you know what I mean? Once a subject arises,  you begin hearing about it everywhere. It is probable that this is a case of selective attention: you simply notice those messages because you're in a receptive state. Indeed, you very likely seek them out. But it's also possible to accept the repetitive nature of the information arising as messages from God or, if you can't handle God, then from the universe.

The universe doesn't care about you one whit, which makes the sending of messages even less likely, but there you have it. Nonspecific spirituality has that drawback.

In any case, right after I whined at xanga about the impossibility of setting a work schedule, I listened to a sermon on taking responsibility for our own actions. God, the pastor informed us with numerous examples, won't do things for us that we can do for ourselves. Manna was one of his examples, and manna is the image I've used for my workstock issues, adding that extra layer of coincidence.

Our Sunday School lesson reminded me about work/life balance, specifically about keeping the sabbath, and I reminded myself that one of my most high-powered and hard-driving clients keeps the sabbath, stopping his work at sundown on Friday no matter how frenzied he's been about it all week.

Then I stopped computer work in the afternoon in order to review a book I'd been sent, and it emphasized that physical health -- sufficient rest, exercise, etc. -- is key to productivity. Then, as I was exploring our options for online tools, I encountered 37 signals' statement about work vs. productivity, claiming that people who work excessive hours get less done, and are only doing it to make themselves feel important.

This caused me to remember back when the owners of the store used to claim that a business owner had to work 24/7. I was familiar with their work habits, and it was my opinion that they'd get more done if they'd take some time off and then, when they were at work, really work.

So, in spite of the fact that my marker board has gotten completely out of control, as you can see, I'm going to work only during working hours this week and see where that gets me.

We're up at 4:00 a.m. again today. I don't remember the last time my husband was called in to work on a Sunday, but I guess we shouldn't complain. Overtime helps pay the tuition bills. We were also able to help the boys out witht heir spring break plans. #2 son is already on spring break, at the Ultimate Frisbee festival (probably the wrong word) in Georgia. #1 son is going on a long canoeing and backpacking trip next week. I may go on a road trip myself, if I can catch up enough on my work.

I worked yesterday, and got quite a bit done, but not everything by any means. I failed to call the web design firm I was supposed to call yesterday afternoon, I failed to get my Aussies' blog done, I failed to complete the trade show materials for the insurance company, I failed to finish the stuff for the large non-profit organization, and I didn't get all the grading done. I did grade quite a lot of stuff (I'm letting the class that ends this week turn in late papers this weekend, so there's a flood). I did site analysis for the West Coast guys, and I hope they like my work. I also worked on a current internal issue -- what productivity tools should we use? We're trying to get project management, customer relationship management, and accounting/billing tools settled. That is, our PM, CRM, and T&E. I want to arrange a perfect system for under $100 a month. If it gets more costly than that, I'll begin to feel as though I could just hire somebody to do that stuff. And while we're searching for the ideal, it's hard not to feel as though I could have done a whole lot of billable work in the time it's taking to work out a system.

My custom software guy does this for people: for $50,000 to $100,000 or so, he'll come in and create a completely customized, completely integrated system for you. I bet it's worth it. Not in my budget, obviously, but worth it.

And then, having done no housework, grocery shopping, or exercise, I collapsed on the sofa and watched Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, while #1 son called out for pizza. My husband collapsed on the floor nearby and fell asleep.

I realize that the ongoing saga of the breakdown of my private life -- if things like my health and home count as private life -- is boring. I assure you, it's boring to me, too. But I don't know what the solution is.

I think I used to have spells of this, times like Back to School when things were pretty grim, but then things would improve, or get back to normal or something. For a while, I figured that's what was happening: I was unemployed and job hunting, and then I was getting my business underway, and things were going to improve.

But they haven't.

I could give up. That is, I could just accept that work is my life, eliminate everything else, and live in squalor. I really enjoy my work, and there are plenty of people in my field who do just that. It doesn't really seem like a good plan, though. I'm too old to ignore my health that thoroughly without consequences, and I probably couldn't ignore my family that thoroughly without consequences, either. Plus, I have other stuff I like to do.

And in theory, I could set work hours from 9 to 5 (well, not and teach 7:30 classes, but you know what I mean), do only as much as I can during those hours, and conduct a normal life around those work hours. That really seems as though it ought to work. It works on paper: make a schedule, fit everything in, and stick to it. I just haven't succeeded at doing it yet.

I think of myself as a capable and disciplined person. Normally, when I have a goal, I figure that I can just put it on my list and accomplish it. I don't get terribly disheartened by failure, but I also don't really know what to do about such persistent, complete failure. Continuing to approach it in the same way I have been doesn't seem reasonable. I mean, it hasn't worked yet, so why would I think it would suddenly start working?

Hmm. Well, today I have to sing in both church services, and I still have all that work to do, and I promised I'd do the grocery shopping, so I guess I'll spend some time with Wii Fit and have a proper breakfast and then dig in. Perhaps some inspiration will strike me in the course of all this.

Our singing gig was fun, and there was a potluck, too. I like potlucks, because they're so mysterious. Is this tofu? Jello with broccoli? Who knows?

When I got home, I found that my husband had put a kettle on and fallen asleep. The kettle had burnt through the bottom and was on fire. The house was filled with smoke. The smoke alarms were going off. My husband was fast asleep.

He's lucky I got there when I did.

Now the house is full of smoke.

It's a work day for both of us. I'm trying not to panic over the amount of work that I have. After all, it's Saturday. Normal people aren't at work, so at least some of my customers won't even know that I didn't get their stuff done last night. They'll come in on Monday and it'll be done, and all will be well.

My house won't be clean and the grocery shopping won't be done, but we can't have everything in this life.

The choirlet is heading down to the Next County to the South to sing. Here are some of the things we're singing:

• Beautiful One
  
• The King of Love My Shepherd Is
• I'll Fly Away
• Life's Railway to Heaven
• Awakening Chorus

It should be fun

I'm watching Religulous during morning Wii Fit step time. It's fairly interesting, and might be more so if it weren't such familiar ground already, but it's also a great example of how easy it is to make people look stupid.

Granted, some of the people were cooperating strongly, but the people he agreed with get to speak entire passages and the ones he doesn't get heavily edited, with scenes of other stuff interspersed. I think there are enough people willing to say stupid things about religion that he could have avoided those cheap effects.

The problem here is in getting people to say silly things about religion and then concluding that there's a problem with religion. You could just as easily get people to say silly things about love, money, food, or any other popular topic. That shows that people are often silly, not that there's something intrinsically wrong with these basic topics.

I had a virtual meeting yesterday morning with one of the developers for a software company I work for. He was showing me a program he'd done. I've sat in on the meetings for programs of this kind before, and he started off the same: namely, behaving as though he were training me to use it. However, since it was just the two of us and we were essentially being paid for him to explain things to me, I went ahead and asked him the questions I needed answered instead, and he was very cooperative after the initial shock wore off. That was helpful, and I hope I can get the same guy to explain things again in future.

Today I have a physical world meeting with a client and the designer. I'm looking forward to it, since that's pretty rare. In between now and then I have a really large amount of work to do.

I need to quit panicking over it. I called #1 daughter at one point to discuss a proposal she's doing, and her bf picked up the phone. I told him things were a bit overwhelming, and he said, "Just remember: they're all waiting for you." Not that comforting, actually.

But everything will get done eventually. If things settle down a bit at some point, I really need to catch up on my Amazon reviews and also on learning things. In this field, you have to learn new things all the time, and I haven't even finished learning the old things yet.

Something to look forward to.

I'm panicking slightly about the amount of work I have to do, but I think that it can in fact be done. During back to school at the store, we learned not to look at the line of people waiting at the register, but just to focus on getting the items on the counter rung up and into the bags. If I take this approach, I think I should be able to get everything done.

This is my old work stock and flow diagram. You just have to add five more agencies on the left, increase the "random clients" source, and you'll have the image of my current work stock and flow.
 
If I keep calm and keep working, all will doubtless be well. If it reaches unmanageable proportions, #2 daughter will give notice and come work for me. Or stay where she is and work for me; that would also be okay.

I'm back to the Wii Fit regularly, now that I've recovered from whatever dreadful virus had me in its grip, I've had some downtime and recreation, and I'm cooking proper meals most of the time. Housekeeping is still very shoddy around here, but we can't have everything, can we?

I've done a startling amount of shopping this month. Startling for me, I mean. While #2 daughter was here, we went to the mall for skin care supplies. The young lady at the Clinique counter asked me if I had any "skin concerns."

I was at a loss, rather. I mean, there's nothing particularly wrong with my skin, but I do sort of feel that I had better take care of it before it lets me down completely. I have discolorations, and wrinkles around my eyes and stuff.

"Well," I offered, "I'm old."

She stared at me.

I think she had been told to repeat what the customer said in her subsequent sales pitches. She stumbled a bit at the places where she was probably supposed to do that, and once did say, "Since you're old" and then laughed uncomfortably.

I was surprised to discover that I ended up with exactly the same stuff I used back when I used Clinique before, when I was young. No additional unguents or miracle creams were offered.

When my old college chum and I went to the Japanese cosmetics shop in Little Tokyo, the saleswomen looked at us severely and told us we needed special elixers to get rid of age spots. They discussed us among themselves in Japanese and looked as though we just might have reached them in time.

I didn't buy the stuff from them at the time, but seeing that Amazon had their miracle potion, I did order some this month. Between that and my Clinique regimen, I feel as though I am doing my part.

The Clinique girl also showed #2 daughter half a dozen lipsticks and eventually found her a pink that she could wear, which was an impressive feat.

I was supposed to have bought clothes, I think. #2 daughter said repressively that I was not to buy anything green this time. We didn't get that far, though, so I ordered things online in outlet sections. I bought a green top, I confess, but also some things in other colors. I think I can now finish out the semester without appearing eccentric, and really, if you don't care a whole lot what you wear, you can finish off your list at the outlet shops for just about as much as a week or two of groceries.

And I bought a television. I was trying to find an armoire to put the old TV in, but it turned out to be cheaper to buy a new TV that would fit on a modern media console, which is it seems what people use nowadays.

So, yeah, I guess it's a good thing that I have lots of work.