Big, ugly, black, chest-squeezing anxiety on Thursday that kept me from going to work. And lots of ugly, judgey words that kept the anxiety flared all day.

The foot, which HURTS after being stepped on (twice) by dancers not paying attention.

Overdrawing our joint checking account (damn $38 fee!) because the husband overdrew HIS account and shorted he joint account and borrowed money from the joint account without telling me, and since the whole thing usually works like clockwork I hadn’t bothered to check until it was too late to fix anything at all.

Realizing that I have put back on every single of 35 pounds it took me 2 years to lose during my divorce. And the fear/stuckness I feel about having to do that work all over again, and thinking that maybe I won’t be able to do it at all.

The Good:

After 6 months of practice, my salsa dancing group did fabulous dancing at our performance on Wednesday night, and my husband told me how proud he was of me, and when I posted the video on my blog, I got SO MANY great Woot!s and high fives and YOU GO GIRLS that I forgot to look at it with a critical eye and instead just basked in the love.

And, we got invited to perform it 6 more times in the upcoming month.

Upon Xray, the foot is not broken but rather badly bruised and sprained, which means no cast and no surgery and instead several weeks of unsightly hiking boot wearing (with dresses?!) to help it heal.

Today, we got our finalized wedding video, and it is awesome.

And, today I got my Dance of Shiva DVD in the mail.
.-= lynn @ human, being´s last post … Days of Grace: 286/365 =-.

Right. So, the hard:

- Forgetting about a voice over job that had been booked for a week (which never happens, I normally get a couple of days notice which means it’s at the front of my mind) because it was my boy’s 4th birthday and I got completely distracted by all the present opening and stuff. This has NEVER before happened in the 8 years I’ve been doing voice overs. YUCK doesn’t even begin to describe it.

- Having a big fight with my accountability demon, who is a complete sook and hates telling the truth if it can get us in trouble. The fight went on all the way to my job, which is a 30 min drive. I won, but it was hard.

- Telling people the truth about how crap I am. Being all responsible and accountable for my massive stuff up and how said massive stuff up affected all the other people involved (there were a lot, and I REALLY like most of them). Feeling like a total ass for letting people down and getting other people in trouble when they’d done their job properly. The horrible weight in my chest whenever I think about it. Still.

Phew. Let’s move on, shall we? The good (yay!):

+ Telling people the truth! Hard, sure, but such goodness as well. Now some people I haven’t worked with for very long KNOW I tell the truth, and don’t ask other people to take responsibility for my crap. Great way to start what is going to be a long term business relationship.

+ Getting the voice over job done within the hour allocated by all the other people working on it, despite being 45 minutes late. Slightly redeeming. Phew.

+ Kicking my accountability demon’s ass. Oh yeah.

+ A surprise visit from my beautiful friend in her lunch break! Lovely.

+ Three voice over jobs in a week! Amazing!

+ Lots of excellent photography goodness, plus my Mum being all pleasantly surprised that I’m starting to make money taking photos of people.

+ My gorgeous boy turned 4! I can’t really believe it. We had a party, and made him a Scooby Doo cake, and it actually looked like Scooby Doo! The kids demolished it in about 3 minutes. LOADS of fun!

+ A very welcome cool(ish) change in the weather. It’s been super hot (like 42 degrees Celcius) for weeks, and now it’s only 31. Ahhhh. It even rained for a millisecond yesterday! Weird, but good.

All in all, much more good than hard, but it didn’t feel like that at the time. I’ll just keep looking at this everytime I get overwhelmed. Yay for the chicken. x

The Hard:
- Speeding ticket on Tuesday. How can a main roadway be only 35mph when cross streets are 40mph?
- Unexpected expenses on the homefront depleting checking account. Fear, worry & anxiety about finances.
- Overwhelmed by piles and list of things to do.

The Good:
- Employee appreciation bonus received on Tuesday (after the ticket) meant I was ahead for the day!
- Found some money in my checking account because I forgot to record my paycheck from the end of December!
- Going to take a vacation day on Monday – my student workers are finally back in full force!

Hope next week is better for everyone!

sucky, sucky work. Scloded for being late. Have to work tomorrow in un-heated building. BLECH.

The good:

I slept through the night every night! Yay!
My kitties slept through the night, enabling above! Double yay!
I have today off!
It didn’t rain!

Good: Met someone who could be a good contact for writing stuff.
Two days of warm weather were a welcome surprise.
Loving my Kindle.
Much-needed girl time with a new friend. Been missing that.

Hard: Encountering some resistance around actually sending clips as requested to move forward on the writing thing.

New workload is a challenge. It’s interesting work, but requires fitting a good deal of getting stuff done into a short time. A good opportunity to work on using time wisely. Challenging in the meantime.
Haven’t been climbing in weeks, between interfering plans and gashing my finger. Afraid it will be brutal when I get back to it.

Now I must go find some Rocky and Bullwinkle.
.-= Sandra´s last post … Tickets for Sapporo Snow Festival still available =-.

Quick chicken:

Hard: backpain.

Good: working on exciting new Thing! It’s already getting some love, and I’m not freaking out enough to stop myself from actually doing it (I think). Yay!

Shiva Nata: Level 3 still doesn’t like me. That’s OK though, so long as it keeps doing the genius thing for me.
.-= Willie Hewes´s last post … Love Letter to my Back Pain =-.

The hard

- I’m out of sick leave (short term and extended) at my day job and won’t get more till June, so now I have to take vacation when I have a migraine. Not fair. A migraine is not a vacation. And I might not have enough vacation time to get me through to June. So I’ve been going to work when I feel like hell, and not really working much because my brain won’t let me. Ugh.

- Realizing that I’ve gained 25 pounds since August and having no idea how. When I first went vegan, I lost 30 pounds without even trying. I’m still vegan, so what gives?

- My new glasses hurt my nose. I went back and had them adjusted, but of course I couldn’t tell at the time if the adjustment actually helped because my nose was already sore. And…it’s still sore.

The good

+ Getting a deposit for all of my beads and a lot of my tools. Yay! Now I just have to sell all the metal clay stuff and silver findings. I think eBay is the way to go unless someone speaks for them before I get to that.

+ Bringing home an entire carload of my gentleman friend’s friend’s late mother’s yarn and fiber, and going back this weekend for more, including a knitting machine. Thinking of the possibilities…

+ Finding a new (for me) meditation posture that’s really comfortable.

+ Snickering every time I see the word Parnassus, because it reminds me of a Rocky and Bullwinkle episode with a character named Pericles Parnassus, a shipping magnate. Rocky said, “Gee, Mr. Parnassus, for a powerful magnate, you don’t pick things up very well.” Hee!
.-= Riin´s last post … Hey! I can see! =-.

It’s been a busy-full week, despite spending most of it hiding out at home.

The Hard
- Wavering between busy-busy-busy and still not having money. Wondering what will give!
- Rain and cold and cold rain. Makes me want to hibernate! Grawr!
- Cat #1 barfs. Cat #2 comes along, eats the barf (ew), walks 6 feet, and barfs it right back up again. EW. And yet, hilarious.
- Having some stuck with a design, ptui ptui ptui. Slowly working toward a solution, but not enjoying the slow. Also, the one piece I did really like, the client did not. Sigh.
- Realizing that I am just a slower creative person, and trying to force the designs makes for bad designs. I require my percolating time in order for the pieces to come together and become awesome for my clients.
- Feeling stuck with Etsy, looking at having to commit huge chunks of time just to keep up with the Etsy-Joneses and their ridiculously high standards for packaging, community involvement, etc. Part of me wants to abandon the whole thing, and yet, I want the zombie stitch markers to find a good home.

The Good
+ Good clients, a glimmer of glasses-buying hope, and plenty to do.
+ Having an excuse to drink lots of tea and not go anywhere.
+ Cuddly cats snuggling up for warmth and loving.
+ Cartoons! In addition to the 5 clienty ones, have done 6 friend ones for a group shot for the lot of us, and am very amused by our clothes/props. Generally feeling much more competent at illustrating.
+ Nearing the end of Gigantic Illustration Project and very excited to be seeing it in real life soon.
+ Had my 2nd contest winner reply, and get to paint an awesome tiny painting for her that is right up my alley.
+ Designed some nifty Valentines for Etsy, which I plan to post over the next few days.
+ Have been slowly working on refining my site copy and marketing stuff with help. Lots of brain work, but in a good way.
+ Sold a print for the Buy Some Art, Be a Cartoon sale. Technically this was last week, but it’s so awesome I’m mentioning it again, since I haven’t shipped it yet.
+ Saw The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, and it ruled!
+ Awesome friends are awesome. All of you. You know who you are. <3
.-= Amy Crook´s last post … How is a cartoon like copywriting? =-.

This week’s hard:
-unexpected expenses. (Oil change turned into $700+ repair bill and BTW we need new tires NOW!) Relatively small scale home project came in way over budget. New violin for growing musician son.
-feeling crummy this week. Very sore throat. Don’t want to eat or drink, even though I’m hungry. (That’s how I can tell I’m not THAT sick!)

This week’s good:
New violin= yay!
New tile in bathroom= yay!
Class I’m teaching started on Wed with three fabulous moms= YAY!!
Workshop I’m doing on Tuesday went live for registration and people are coming = YAY!!!
.-= Liz´s last post … Do Overs and High-Fives =-.