I mentioned on my other blog that I was out researching Price Pfister faucets when I missed a golden opportunity. Now, I didn’t want to go into details over there because I didn’t feel it was the proper venue for telling such a tale. This is my personal blog where I chronicle my trials and tribulations with my family, illness and career goals (and possibly my accomplishments, which have to date been few and far between). So, I’ll expand a little here.

On Tuesday I had the opportunity to participate in a conference call with Sharon Gless and Bruce Campbell, two stars from USA Network’s "Burn Notice". I don’t get paid by USA Network for anything I write about regarding them. I do my little bit of work with a marketing company that works with them because I am honored to have been chosen to do so (someone from the company ran across the work I was previously doing on Bella Online and contacted me via them). I have the opportunity to pre-screen shows as well as interview people working on those shows. Again, I am grateful for the opportunity to work with them. Especially because “Burn Notice” is one of my favorite shows. At any rate, I was unable to participate in the call, but they were kind enough to give me a transcript of the question/answer session. I was so incredibly disappointed that I missed that chance and am kicking myself for it.

You see, Grump doesn’t take my ambitions and goals seriously. And so neither does any of his family. His mother will gladly keep Mags for him while he’s at a VFW meeting, but will find 1000 reason to deny me when I want someone to watch her while I’m doing my work. Because I don’t get paid to write about “Burn Notice” or any of the other programs (“The Cleaner” and “The Andromeda Strain” are two others about which I’ve written) they don’t see it as “serious”. They believe that I’m just wasting my time.

Now, my mother-in-law works in realty. She’s quite good at it and has a good clientele. She makes good money. But she does things to increase her exposure and improve her “brand” that actually cost her money and for which she doesn’t immediately see a return. She’s done this for years and so has become quite successful. I’ve tried to explain to her that I, too, would like to one day become successful in my chosen field and that one of the ways to do this is through exposure and “working” for pretty much nothing. I explained that some of the work I do via my blogs do pay me, though I’m not getting rich, but that work helps pay the bills that will eventually allow me to receive more money in the long run. I explained that this is important to me and for my future goals. Grump poo-poos my time online and sees no reason why I would need a babysitter while I’m at home—even though I would be on the phone and need that time to be uninterrupted. Neither of them are capable, I think, of seeing the long-term benefits. And that’s very frustrating to me.

The good news is that Mags will start school in a couple of weeks. That will give me plenty of time during the day to do the work I want to do and see where that takes me. I’m also in school so that I can earn a degree and possibly have a career in something completely unrelated. So I’ll have that too. While I’m waiting for all of this to come to fruition (and struggling with my disease on top of it all!) I also have a brick-and-mortar job that helps pay the bills. I’m not lazing around watching soaps all day and being unproductive. I’ve got goals and need to be able to work on reaching those goals—at the same time I’m meeting my responsibilities as a mother and wife. I believe that I’m due a little leeway and understanding here.

I understand that this post seems to be more whining than anything. It’s not. I’m frustrated. I was so proud to be contacted by that marketing firm because of the writing I am capable of doing (though you wouldn’t know it to read me the last few months, would you) and I really want to participate in their campaigns—regardless of the lack of monetary payment. I did something that was recognized as good and capable and asked to participate in something. That made my head swell to gigantic proportions. It’s upsetting to me that my spouse and family fail to recognize how this is important to me. And so I vent. Hopefully I won’t need to do that much longer and will be able to post my accomplishments more (as I have more time to concentrate on my writing). I’m looking forward to that. My initial plan was to take classes during the day—while Mags is in school, but that’s changed.

I’ve decided that I’ll be taking two nights of classes and working during the day. My brick-and-mortar job only requires a few hours a week at a time (for which I make pretty decent money in this area: $1,200 a month) and I’ll be able to that primarily on weekends. I’ll find the time for all of that and still be able to mother Mags in the evening and weekend afternoons. I’ve wasted plenty of life not doing what I want to do and doing for other people what they expected of me. I don’t think that it’s so bad that I do for myself with this free time I’ll finally have. Grump won’t even know that I’m not going crazy trying to find 5 full minutes to type up a post. Then maybe we’ll both be happier.

I wish, though, that I could have participated in that conference call. Next time, if I’m offered the opportunity, I’ll be the first one to call in. For sure I won’t miss that again. If only for myself so I can say I did it. That’s really important to me at this point.

I don’t get outside as much as I want right now. And when I do, I’m usually just lounging on our outdoor furniture and trying to relax. Lately I’ve taken to bringing my writing assignments, a notebook, and pen and hanging out there to do my work. I don’t want to trap Mags in the house, so I thought this would be perfect for us. I love to hear the music of the birds singing while I work and Mags is occupied trying to see how the ants work or digging a hole or picking flowers. It’s a win-win situation for us.

One of my favorite things to do is gardening. Flower and vegetable. Mostly flower, though, because Grump gets on my last nerve with "his" garden. At any rate, I love to watch my flowers bloom and my plants thrive. I like to be out among them and am hoping to someday have a show garden that’s a little on the wild side (nothing’s perfect in my life and no way do I want it to be).  I want bunches of wild flowers mingled with lilies and hostas. I want sunny plants and shady plants. I want my yard to be a flower garden.

Unfortunately it’s a little too wild now. The last couple of days, since I’ve been “recuperating”, I’ve been out there looking around and I’ve been stressed out by the state of the grounds (ha!). There are weeds taking over everything and I can’t really get out there to do anything about it. As understanding as I like to believe my husband is at this point, he does often grumble about the state of the beds and there is NO way I’m allowing him in them to weed them.

(The last time he did that, he eliminated a couple of my favorite plants and nearly killed my 40 year-old rose bush. Lesson learned.)

I’ve been considering showing Mags what I need done, but there’s no way she’s going to cooperate the second she sees a bug. She loves, loves, loves ants. Will watch them for hours, give them names and imagine what they do in their underground “towns”. But other type of typical garden bugs are not her thing. She freaks and that’s it for her. Pee Wee, obviously, is no help as she doesn’t live in this town anymore and I rarely see her (or KJ, which is a whole other whine). I try to convince myself that my garden is as God intended with it’s wildness and the birds and butterflies and bugs. Weeds are plants too, right? Then I imagine my yard looking like one of those gardens in Better Homes & Gardens and I get irritated. I want to get up and clean it all up, but know better. I tried that before and that didn’t work out well for me at all. I really do wish that someone would take the initiative and come over to help me. Which is even funnier, because I don’t like anyone “helping” with my things because they always seem to mess it up.

In a couple of weeks things will start calming down, I hope and I’ll be able to both do my writing and my yard work in the same day. I won’t keep stopping and looking around wishing I could get something done. I can write, weed, write, water, write, rake…etc. That is something that will make me perfectly happy, I think. And a goal I’ve just set for myself.

Now that summer is here and school is officially out for me, I have time to browse Amazon books for some good stuff. What am I going to be looking for though? Gardening? Romance? Technology? I’m thinking along the lines of gardening and fiction of some sort because I only have so much time in my day.

I went to the library today and picked up a book on resume and cover letter writing, though it’s admittedly extremely dry and boring. But I’m hoping to find another job where I’m better suited both emotionally and physically. My current job just isn’t cutting it for me. At any rate, that’s what I’m reading today and I really want something more exciting to read and keep me occupied on days when I just can’t get around and go outdoors.

I haven’t even really looked at book lists lately and am thinking I probably should catch up on my technical reading. But is that what I want to do? Of course not. I should though. To keep me fresh before next August (I won’t be taking classes over the summer) and to keep me sane. The last fictional book I read was called “The Fairy in the Dairy” and was geared toward preschoolers. Gee, I wonder why I was reading that. Sometimes Mommy needs stuff for mommy, right? Of course, I’ll get a book or two and it’ll sit on my shelf gathering dust. Why did I stop making time for it? I’ve gotten lazy in my old age.

Well, I’ve got three whole months to catch up on some stuff. I should probably get cracking.