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Gosh, almost the end of June already? It has been so long since I have updated here. I’ve been pretty busy both professionally and personally. My daughter is out of school for the summer. Which makes for very long days and not a whole lot of work going on here.

More on Summer is in full swing

I often work from a remote location (i.e. Panera Bread, Biggby, or Starbucks) while my daughter is in preschool. That means I need to bring my office with me. Luckily I am pretty portable and just need my laptop, ipod, notebook, pen, and a bluetooth mouse. You can face many choices when trying to find the perfect bag to store everything. Do you want a backpack, messenger bag or laptop shoulder bag? Something with soft sides or hard sides? High priced or bargain basement? Girly or manly?

I have a pretty feminine black bag with shoulder straps. It works pretty well, but seems to be a tight squeeze for everything. I’m not sure if I need to try a different bag or if I need to find a smaller power cord for my laptop. That seems to be the bulkiest item, besides my laptop that I have.

How about you? What kind of bag do you have for your laptop?

Ahhh, after the promise and progress of March, April seems so disappointing. I’m sorry that I have not updated in awhile. I took on another freelance job this month, so I have been finding the right rhythm of fitting into my schedule. I promise to have more regular posts here. I’m also hoping to spend more time on BANS and let you know how that is working.

Until next time,
Shannon

After a two week delay due to illness and mid-winter break for my daughter, I am back to work this week. It has been a long two weeks and I have a ton of things to catch up on. I feel I need to manage my time better. I am getting much better about having some fun time for myself though, so that has been nice. I still have to find that perfect balance though.

For March I have decided to work on the 31 Days to Becoming a Better Blogger challenge. There are 31 days in March so it is perfect. I can’t wait to start working on this. Anyone with me for March?

I upgraded computers in November and finally got my very own, brand new laptop. I’ve gotten new computers before but never a new laptop. Previously I had just used hand me downs and then used remote access on it to my desktop. It has been a slow process of switching over completely to my laptop. There have been a few things that I just don’t want to let go of.

Frontpage is the big one. When I first started building websites, I used Frontpage. It has many faults and is super frustrating at times. But well it is what I learned on and I like it. I did purchase Dreamweaver a few years back but never really got into it. I really didn’t have the time to learn something new when I had something that was working.

And then Microsoft announced it would no longer be supporting Frontpage and they wouldn’t be replacing it with anything right away. No biggie, I just kept on using my old version. Well now that I have switched to a new computer and I don’t have an install disk with Frontpage on it, I am stuck. I pulled out Dreamweaver and am hoping to use that to update some pages on my sites. I miss Frontpage. I’m so glad I am building my new sites with Wordpress. So much easier.

I’m happy to report that all of my blogging is done for the week and I can mark that off the list. Yay! Unless I get a last minute assignment of course. Which would be welcomed but it would be nice to work on all the other things on my quite extensive list this week. I’ll keep you updated of my progress.

With my new found work time, one of my big goals this year was to create a weekly to do list for work and stick with it. I love to do lists and think they are a great way to prioritize your time. In fact one of my favorite time savers this year is the house cleaning and organizing lists from Motivated Moms. I’ll be sure to discuss that more in the future.

Anyway I sat down on Sunday and created a very extensive list of things to work on this week. And then my husband brought the flu home from work. Good old influenza. We have both been sick this week. Fortunately (knock on wood) my daughter has not gotten sick. Thanks to Tamiflu we are both feeling much better. To say the least no work got done this week. At least I have a to do list for next week already prepared

While reading an ebook I had this thought and of course I had to share with my friend Chrissie:

Shannon says:
i am just blown away by the businesses out there sometimes
Shannon says:
just think of the money plr and stock images websites make with people downloading at 2 or 3 dollars a pop
Shannon says:
so simple
Chrissie says:
i know - its crazy AND why isn’t our site? lol
Shannon says:
and that is my random biz thought for the day
Chrissie says:
lol i will expect one daily now

You may go about your business now. Not sure if I will be able to meet that goal

Oh and I was paid for my freelance job, so no worries. I was really getting worried about my boss for awhile there though.

The last two weeks have found me working on a personal project. I belong to a private message board and we found ourselves quickly outgrowing the space on the free board we had found. The decision was made to move to our own hosting and to use the free phpBB software. The pay has been about nil, but I have learned so much about forum management and modifications. Plus the members there are very important to me and I feel great about giving back to the community that has given so much to me. I always tell people that I am constantly learning in this job.

Hopefully I will have everything up and running in the next few days and I will be able to start working on my own projects again. As usual I have quite the to do list. Working never stops for me, that is for sure.

I’m dealing with an issue right now and it is definitely one of the downsides of freelancing. I have been working for someone for almost a year now and they have been pretty good about paying on time. Well I never received a check last month. I tried contacting them a few times, but never heard back. I’ve continued to work on the job in the hopes that I will eventually get paid, but now I am kind of getting fed up. This is a person that I have known for quite a long time. I’m not really sure where to go from here. Do I keep working and hope that everything gets sorted out? I’m a little concerned that something has happened to this person and I just wish that she would contact me.