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As the finality of my decisions sink in, I start to feel a tight knot form in my stomach. I’ve never gone without a safety net, without the comfort of a regular job and a steady income. As I look at our budget, and think about insurance for our little one, the panic starts to set in.

And then I can’t sleep at night and want to sleep all day. I don’t want to work (at the day job) because I feel paralyzed. Yet not working kindof defeats things, doesn’t it?

Right now, I don’t have enough work to cover us. Right now, I don’t know where our insurance is going to come from. Right now, I am trying to avoid a full-blown panic attack.

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Your freelance writing idol? Deb Ng is taking a new approach to choosing her new columnist - American Idol-style. First, she had an open call for auditions, where interested writers toss out their pitches. From there, the top twelve will be chosen. And then, it’s a weekly run-off with the writers submitting entries based on an assigned theme.

So why am I participating? For one, I think I can write twice a week on being a freelance writer. And it sounded like fun. Even if I don’t get it, it forces me to write on an assigned topic. It makes me exercise my writing muscles.

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I’ve been meaning to read Jen Lemen’s accounts of her time in Africa, but I just haven’t had the time. But today, I followed a link to just one story and it took my breath away.

If you haven’t read Goreth’s story yet, you really should. I always wondered what my life would have been like in another time, another place and I think I just caught a glimpse.

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I told my group at work that I was leaving. We’ve had the same core of people for quite a while now, and they’re like a bit of family to me. We’ve shared so many things. They’ve been with me when I got married, graduated college, and had a baby. We’ve had parties, eaten a lot of food, and laughed together. They are a large part of why I enjoyed my job so much. And I feel like I’m breaking up with them.

I guess I am.

That saddens me. I couldn’t keep from tearing up as they came by and said they’ll miss me. Even though we all know it’ll be a little while until they find someone. It still hurts. I still feel forced to make a decision I didn’t want to make. I didn’t want to leave.

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I haven’t been able to get enough sleep over the past week, even with mid-day naps snuggling my sweet boy. Maybe it’s restlessness. Maybe it’s life changes.

Or maybe it’s teething. The boy broke one tooth last week and a second tooth on Monday. He’s really not too grouchy, considering. Just not napping much, running a slight fever until the teeth break, and being a tiny bit whiny. But I know it could be worse.

Like Sunday afternoon, for instance. I think we re-enacted a portion of the exorcist. Baby vomit flying everywhere. You’re welcome.

I felt so sorry for the tyke. Grandma picked him up from his nap, he belched, then spewed. I had been napping (nappus interruptus), but went in the dining room to help. I took the kid, and while Mom cleaned up the floor and table, I cleaned the kid. Of course, just after I got that done, he borked some more.

Read the rest of “trying not to let the tired take over” »

I don’t have a lot of time to post this week, due to connection issues (as in, I only have a sloooooooow one). But just to update on things, the trip out wasn’t horrible. The people in security were fairly helpful, telling me what I needed to do.

United didn’t allow me to pre-board, which sucked a lot. But other passengers were patient, even offering to help when they saw my hands were full and I was trying to maneuver a stroller (and fold it up) with a baby strapped to my person.

The minimal amount of space in airline seats? Really sucks. If I could afford first class, I totally would fly it. It would make such a different in comfort. On one leg of the trip a guy put his seat all the way back. My knees hit his seat and I was pinned down. There was no way I could get up and out of my seat, especially not with the baby on my lap. I asked him nicely to move his seat up a little and he kindly did so.

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I’m doing some research for my upcoming trip. I really don’t think there will be any problems when I try to feed my son on the plane, but I want to be prepared just in case.

Unfortunately, United doesn’t have any posted policies on their site about allowing breastfeeding. I found some news stories from an incident in 2006 where United stated that their company policy allows breastfeeding on the plane. I would hope so, considering they encourage moms to feed their children during take-off and landing. I’d love to have something from them that I could print out and take with me, but I couldn’t find any references that I could show to any flight attendants.

I also couldn’t find anything on TSA’s site, except a note that breastfeeding moms can take quantities of breast milk and juice greater than 3 oz. if they declare them for inspection separately from their 1-quart zip bag of liquids. That’s good, but I’ll be traveling for 4 hours plus layovers and won’t really have a way to keep the milk cool. (I know you can keep milk up to 10 hours, but that would have to be freshly expressed. My flight leaves at 7 am and you’re crazy if you think I’m going to get up at 4 to pump.)

But I did find a listing that summarizes breastfeeding laws in the 50 states. And since they should have to follow the laws in the state that the flight originates in, I should be okay.

I really hope that prepping beforehand will mean that there are no hassles and I won’t have to worry about it.

I just did something I haven’t really done before. I just quit my job. And I don’t have another job lined up either, except for my writing.

I gave my notice at work today. I offered to continue to work until they can find someone to replace me. I’m not sure if they’ll take m up on that. If they do, I could be working part-time for another couple of months. If the business office decides that they would rather keep the cost savings, well, I’m out of a job come mid-June.

If I hadn’t mentioned it, I’m just a little scared. I have some writing, but I haven’t yet lined up enough to replace my income. I’m working on it, though.

But I had to do it. I just had to. My family is more important. It’ll be a struggle in the beginning, but we’ll make it. The smile my little boy gives me each morning more than makes up for it.

So I’m not unemployed, just changing venues. It looks like I’m officially a writer and nothing else. I’m scared, yet excited.

I got sucked into “Farmer Wants a Wife” on the CW network tonight. My interest was mostly in the fact that the guy is from Missouri (so am I, in case you didn’t know) and I wanted to see how he — and small town life — is portrayed.

I know it can be done. I know a city-slicker girl can move to a farm and love it. Ree did it. Many others have, too. But I am just so skeptical of all of this. If he really is a down-to-earth farmin’ Missouri boy, what the heck is he doing on a reality show looking for a wife? I don’t understand why anyone would put themselves through that.

I know, I’m taking this way too seriously. I can’t help it - I just want to make sure that the small town kid isn’t made to look like a completely backwards redneck by the big Hollywood-types. That, and I love watching the city girls curl up their noses when they have to do some real work. Heh.

I hate reality shows. And here I am, watching one. (two episodes, even) I must go hang my head in shame now. And try to sweep up and dust off those IQ points that I lost. They must be around here somewhere…

The kid and I spent most of the afternoon under the a/c. It was a tremendous help.

I’m trying hard to relax about all the things going on - work and money. But I’m still stressing about what we’re going to do. We’re trying to work things out. The kid still needs his shots and we have to work out childcare issues. Like I’ve said, he needs some transition into it - he’s never been left with anyone. We thought we could work our schedules out to where one of us was always here. But that causes problems with J’s job.

Daycare is so expensive. We’re talking about half my salary, people. Half! That’s why I wanted to work part-time. It’d be about the same but we could work out the coverage that way. We can’t for full-time work. Not unless J gets a different job or cuts way back on his hours to be home during the day. I’m not willing to ask him to do that. I’m the one who’s not ready to be away from our son.

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