Nix9to5

Babies Don’t Keep

// April 30th, 2010 // No Comments » // Children and Babies, Life in General

A Nix9to5 reader’s Facebook status about cuddling her baby instead of working and paying bills reminded me of a poem a friend shared with me when I first had the Bear and couldn’t seem to accomplish anything as far as housework went:

Mother, oh Mother, come shake out your cloth
Empty the dustpan, poison the moth,
Hang out the washing and butter the bread,
Sew on a button and make up a bed.
Where is the mother whose house is so shocking?
She’s up in the nursery, blissfully rocking.

Oh, I’ve grown shiftless as Little Boy Blue
(lullaby, rock-a-bye, Lullaby loo).
Dishes are waiting and bills are past due
(pat-a-cake, darling, and peek-peek-a-boo).
The shopping is not done and there’s nothing for stew
And out in the yard there is a hullabaloo.
But I’m playing “Kanga” and this is my “Roo.”
Look! Aren’t his eyes the most wonderful hue?
(lullaby, rock-a-bye, lullaby loo).

The cleaning and scrubbing will wait till tomorrow,
For children grow up, as I’ve learned to my sorrow.
So quiet down cobwebs. Dust go to sleep.
I’m rocking my baby and babies don’t keep.
–Ruth Hulburt Hamilton, 1958

When my friend first shared this poem, I cried. I figured it was postpartum hormones, but since I just cried again while reading that last stanza, I guess it’s not.

My house is still a mess, but I feel less guilty about it.

All Work and No Play . . .

// April 30th, 2010 // No Comments » // Work at Home

I’m just checking in with you, my lovely readers. Things have been incredibly hectic around here, as I’m sure you can tell by all my moaning, complaining, and lack of posting. I just keep reminding myself that trying to juggle a full-time job with part-time jobs won’t last forever. When I think about why I’m working so hard right now, it’s all worthwhile:

Since I’ve been a little out of touch, here’s what’s going on in Nix9to5 world:

I found out that I cannot maintain any type of employment while on a Leave of Absence, so I had to resign instead. This means if we can’t financially make it with me working from home, I don’t have a job waiting for me next year.
I am almost positive I have a new copywriting client who will offer a large volume of work on a consistent basis. The client liked my resume and writing samples and asked for a sample specific to their needs. They liked that sample as well, and have asked for 5 articles as sort of a trial run. They also offered me more work than I initially applied for, so I think they are pretty pleased.
Just as I was trying to figure out how I was going to work an extra 30 hours in less than 3 days, one of my projects abruptly ended about 5 hours before I thought it would, meaning I had time tonight to bump up some of the projects I had scheduled for tomorrow. I love bonus time. I mean, I’m not going to make it to bed before 11:30 tonight, but I do have two more articles written than I thought I would, AND I had time to post here on Nix9to5.

I think that might be all the big updates. My brain is turning a little mushy and my eyes are starting to sting and get fuzzy, so I’m going to call that good for now. Nighty-night, readers.

Tales from the Freezer

// April 28th, 2010 // 2 Comments » // Cooking, Time Management, Work at Home

Before Sunday, I have to:

Work two more days at my “real” job
Complete roughly 13 more hours of scoring
Write two articles
Complete 3 hours of online tutoring
Complete at least 1/3 of my training for the next scoring administration
Begin writing copy for another new project

Yikes.

That makes me so sad that my stash of freezer meals is almost completely depleted. I have one lonely casserole in there that I’m going to have to defrost if we want to eat something other than Frosted Mini-Wheats in the next few days. I’m going to need to restock my freezer soon, if I can just figure out a time to cook.

In the meantime, my good friend over at Charla’s Confessions has added a freezer recipe section to her blog. Head on over and check out the sausage biscuit recipe she posted today. It looks yummilicious. I’ve got some sausage in the freezer that I got for free a while back, and this will be the perfect use for it.

Now? Back to work–which is a totally uncool thing to have to say at 10:30 p.m.

A New Low

// April 27th, 2010 // No Comments » // Couponing

I’m sorry my posts have been both brief and infrequent lately. All these extra hours right now are just sucking up any available time I have. I’m going cross-eyed from scoring essays, so I’m taking a little break to show you what I picked up on my quick grocery run today.

Just a little trip to use a few coupons before the sales week is up. Some conditioner, a can of tomatoes, and some lemonade. No biggie.

The best part of this trip, though, is that it is the least amount of money I have ever spent at a grocery store–or any store for that matter.

My total? Four cents. That’s right–I walked out of the store having paid in pennies. Including tax.

Now, I know some of the expert couponers out there could have bought several bags of groceries for not much more than my four pennies. I know this is nothing compared to the ZERO total Amanda over at Simple Saving Savvy got recently (yes, she got way more than this for absolutely nothing, nada, zilch). Still, you walk out of the store with change from a nickel, you feel pretty proud of yourself.

The funny thing about this purchase is that if I had not “bought” the tomatoes or the lemonade, my total for the conditioner would have been about .75 including tax, which would have been pretty good on its own (sale price is $2.66–I had a coupon for $1, which doubles at my store). However, the total coupons for the lemonade and tomatoes were worth more than the sale price, so that came off my total. I love overage.

Now, back to my essays. I need to earn some more money to try to avoid spending.

Why I’m Doing It

// April 25th, 2010 // 2 Comments » // Balance, Children and Babies, Life in General

Right now, I’m feeling very close to burnout. I just keep telling myself that it’s just a few more weeks, and then temporary projects will be done, and shortly after that, it will be summer, and I’ll begin my Leave of Absence. In the meantime, I’m a little on edge. In fact, this morning when they sang the birthday song on Sprout, I cried. I don’t know why.

However, this morning gave me some big reminders of why I’m working so hard right now, and why it is worth it.

First, as Bear and I were playing in the living room this morning, I had the TV on in the background. I usually have it tuned to Sprout (which apparently makes me cry) because I don’t think Bear is going to hear anything too terrible on it. A Clorox toilet cleaner commercial came on. You know the one that shows all the different toilets and calls them by different names? Well, Bear looked up from what he was doing and called out, “Potty! Potty! Poopie!” So funny. I don’t want to miss those little moments anymore.

Later, I was drinking my coffee and dipping cookies into it (yes, I had cookies and coffee for breakfast–is that wrong?). Bear came walking up to me with his big blue eyes and asked, “Coo-kee?” I broke a little piece off and handed it to him (yes, I gave my baby cookie at breakfast–is that wrong?) and he looked at me and grinned and–completely unprompted–said, “Tay-too!” For those of you not fluent in Toddler, he said, “Thank you,” all by himself. My good boy.

Neither of those moments compare to what happened earlier in the morning, when Bear was eating his own breakfast (without cookies). Because I did not realize I didn’t have any fruit prepared for him, I let Bear feed himself his cereal. Messy, but it allowed me to chop and cook some pears for him while he ate. As I was peeling and chopping, Bear looked at me and said for the first time ever, “Ah loo, Mommy.”

Ah loo = I love you.

Sprout isn’t the only thing that made me cry this morning.

Sleep? Who needs sleep?

// April 25th, 2010 // 2 Comments » // Balance, Life in General, Work at Home

Since Monday, I have worked an extra 20.7 hours scoring essays (approximately 400 498 of them–literally) and spent another 2 hours or so working on copywriting projects. That’s about 23 hours on top of my full-time job. My husband is out of town, my house is a mess, and my baby is coming down with a cold, which means short naps. Except for the occasional Facebook update and these teeny little blog posts, I have had literally no down time. I don’t expect Hot Husband to be home until after Bear goes to bed tomorrow night, so I might have to count my morning commute on Monday as “down time”–that is, if I don’t fall asleep behind the wheel.

It is almost 1:30 a.m., and if recent mornings hold true, my child will be up before 7:00.

I’m not sure if my eyes or my brain will melt first.

It’s Official

// April 23rd, 2010 // 7 Comments » // Work at Home

I told my principal that I will not becoming back to work next year. Instead, I’ll be staying home with the Bear.

To be honest, I’m not sure how we are going to make it work. I just know that, now, we have to make it work.

As of June 3, I’ll officially be a work-at-home mom.

Wish me luck!!

A heartwarming tale.

// April 21st, 2010 // 2 Comments » // Life in General, Work at Home

You may remember my story of how it warmed my little heart to find out about someone who stumbled across Nix9to5 while looking help with her gripey husband problem.

Well, today I have a story that warms my heart even more. I was checking out my Facebook fan page when I came across this post on the wall of Kimberly, a Nix9to5 reader (I hope she doesn’t mind me posting it here):

Contract #2 secured! (I also have #3 and #4 at the second stage of interviewing/testing) I’m on a roll baby!! And I don’t even have to get out of my jammies to work and I can continue once baby gets here… Have to thank Nix9to5 for the inspiration to get started working from home… Also thanks to Hillary for recommending to fan the page… WHOO HOO!!

I am so excited that Kimberly was able to find a way to work from home so that she can stay at home when her baby arrives. I’m just tickled to pieces that she said Nix9to5 is the inspiration for it. I wish her tons of success and hope that I can soon join her as a work at home mom.

I look forward to hearing more tales of success from you–and adding my own to your stories.

Congratulations to Kimberly, who is going to be able to be a work at home mom. Congratulations to Amanda, a stay at home mom that has begun spending less and couponing more and shaved $1000 off of her spending this month. Congratulations to all of you who have are working hard to do what is best for you and your families.

I hope you are all able to take something from Nix9to5, whether it is a way to save money or earn a little extra if you are a stay at home mom, a way to find a sustainable income as a work at home mom, a way to find some balance as a working mom, a way to connect with moms like you, or just a way to manage to find enough time to shave your legs when you shower.

Thanks to all of my readers for joining me on this journey.

What have I done?!

// April 20th, 2010 // 3 Comments » // Balance, Opportunities, Time Management, Work at Home

After a weekend out of town, I came back to find an email saying that there were immediate openings scoring for Pearson. I thought that this email was in response to the paperwork I’d already submitted for the scoring I’m going to do in May, and I clicked the “accept” button, thinking I was just continuing the process.

Nope.

I signed up for a new project that began immediately. As in yesterday. I began the training yesterday and finished it today, and actually began scoring today. This will require an extra 20-30 hours of my time for the next two weeks, which will be difficult, to say the least.

To make it worse?

Hot Husband is going on a motorcycle trip this week and will be gone Thursday through Sunday, so there will be no one keeping an eye on the Bear while I work. Which means all work has to be done after Bear goes to bed. That’s going to make for some long nights (and some short blog posts).

The silver lining in all of this is that I’ll have another check to go into savings to help build that cushion in case I am able to stay home.

When I start to get overwhelmed and exhausted, I just keep telling myself that I’m doing it for Bear.

Wish me luck!

Ebates: Cash Back When You Shop Online

// April 18th, 2010 // 2 Comments » // Money Matters

I like to do a lot of my shopping online, because I often just don’t have the time or energy to go. I do a lot of shopping on Amazon, but I also like to shop through Ebates.com. With Ebates, you can shop at any of hundreds of stores, and just by clicking through from the Ebates site, you earn cash back on your purchases. Not credit. Cash. As in a Big Fat Check. In fact, Ebates even calls it a Big Fat Check.

Here is one example of how I have used Ebates. Last October, I was looking at fall baby clothes online for the Bear. I saw that Old Navy had a lot of cute things and a pretty decent sale going on. Instead of going directly to OldNavy.com to buy the clothes, I went to Ebates, logged into my account, and clicked on their link to Old Navy. Ebates offers 4% cash back on Old Navy purchases, so in addition to my Old Navy sales, I also earned $6.08 cash back. I had a couple of Shutterfly purchases for Christmas gifts, and I earned 10% cash back on those, which was nearly $10–just for buying things I was going to buy anyway. Plus, Ebates gave me a $5 Sign Up Bonus when I started my account.

Long story short: Ebates sent me a check for $21.00 for buying Bear clothes and Christmas gifts. They paid me $21.00 to shop!

Ebates has over 1,200 stores, including places like Target and JC Penney–and even Diapers.com (use code NICCI and get $10 off your first order). The stores are common places you’d shop at anyway. Now, anytime I shop online, I go through Ebates first.

If you want to start earning money to shop, sign up for Ebates here, and earn $5 toward your first Big Fat Check just for signing up.