Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Suddenly, Something's Gotta Give

Today is my last day of leisurely panic-stricken unemployment and now, suddenly, I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed with all I've taken on.

The company I'll be working for has offices in both Mumbai, India and Redmond, Washington, with very close collaboration between the two, so I'll be expected to work at least six hours during the day and at least another two at night. I have no problem with that schedule because it will allow me to keep up with my habit of swimming daily and still allow me to be home by 5:00 or so, but it means that I need to fit my other obligations in somewhere.

And suddenly I have a lot of other obligations!

I went to the first board meeting for Open Arms last night and, assuming they vote me onto the board (I expect to hear today), that will be another substantial commitment, both in terms of time and money since, as a board member, I'll be expected to either raise or give at least $1000 per year to the organization.

(So hey, let me just take a paragraph and make my first shameless plug right here and now:

In the spirit of Obama-style fundraising, of and by the people and in numerous, but small amounts... would any of you like to donate to a very worthy cause? Open Arms is an absolutely awesome nonprofit organization that provides services that support, educate, respect, honor and empower women in need and their families throughout the childbearing year. Imagine an incarcerated woman who must give birth alone in prison, or a victim of domestic abuse, or a single immigrant with no health insurance. Open Arms provides these women with doulas to provide that very important labor support. If you'd like to donate any amount (it's tax deductible!), just go to the website and click "donate now," but please let me know that you did, so I can claim your contribution towards my $1000 fundraising requirement! And hey, thanks in advance! Plug over...)

Not sure I mentioned this here before, but I also answered the call (literally, actually) to be an AFS liaison again, this time for Manu, a Belgian boy. He's wonderful, and our whole family really likes him, but I'm feeling really guilty that I'm not a more dedicated and involved volunteer this year, as I was last year as a liaison to Eva, or the year before, as a host parent to Laura. But I still want to (and am required to) connect with him regularly, and I haven't been very good about that. At all. Sigh.

Annnnndddd... I have also signed on to do some freelance writing. I've already signed a contract with SimpleTuition (you can see my posts here), and am considering signing a contract to write for Parenting Squad, who has asked me to write for their "college age kids" section. (Goodness knows, I'll have fodder!) Their business model allows their writers to be paid 100% of ad revenue for their pages... but I have NO idea what that means in terms of dollars and cents! I know it's dependent on the number of readers a page has, but are we talking $5 a month? $50? $500? I truly have NO idea! And since something's gotta give and I haven't signed a contract with them yet, I'm trying to get some idea about the potential revenue I'd see if I wrote for them. Anyone know? Advice, anyone? They're really open regarding posting frequency, allowing daily posts, but only requiring one post every 90 days. Does anyone know more about this business model? Help!

Oh, and there's also this blogging, but I don't consider this to be an obligation. It's more of an obsession and it's NOT going away, no matter how much other stuff I take on! I just want to be sure that I still have time to post some thoughtful posts -- like that Letter to My Body, which I'm working on, but oh, man... I'm having a hard time getting beyond "I hate you! I hate you!" and I'm so ashamed, because my body has been so good to me, even though I tend to abuse and chastise it and disregard it... but that's SO another post! And I'm working on it.

So, these days of lazing about (ha!) are over and I'm gonna have to make some choices. I don't think I can do it all, especially since this is the last semester of Aleks' and Kat's senior year and anyone who's been through that knows what it means! And since we're coming down to the last six months with these kids still being home before heading off to college, I really want to make sure I save some important family time too!

What should I keep? (Other than the full-time job... duh!), and what should I let slide? What would YOU do?

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5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Carol,
You are a favorite among the writers here at SimpleTuition, so obviously for selfish reasons, we don't want you to drop that one! But congrats on the full-time gig and I'd love to hear how the other blogging gig works out - being paid by ad revenue is certainly - uh - uncertain?

Jen said...

Take a deep breath and look into your heart.

Huge hugs.

Rhonda C. said...

Sounds like your priorities have to be your new job and your kids. I would hold off a year on Open Arms unless it is a minimal committment. I guess the AFS situation is already started? Well Graduation is around the corner. I like the deep breath idea too!

Hugs and smiles ! Rhonda

Goofball said...

wow it does sound like you'll be busy. But then again I think you can juggle all of those. The liaison and writing seem to be more flexible agendawise and stuff.

I started in September with my job, yoga, aerobic, choir and diving club. Quite busy but you do settle in some rhythm after a while.

I didn't know you were liaison with Manu from Belgium :). So does that mean that on your next Europe trip, you'll stop by in Belgium too??? where is he from?

Anonymous said...

yohoho there. I just saw your name in the bloggers forum at Wise Bread/Parenting Squad. I just started writing for Wise Bread in Jan and it has been pretty really fun. Money-wise it depends on how many page views and clicks you get. So far for Feb I've gotten $200 just for Adsense, and I'm not sure how much of a cut I will get from the site wide revenue yet. Hope to see you post on Parenting Squad!

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