The past couple of weeks have been a real whirlwind. My team at work has been simultaneously short-staffed and over-tasked, which has resulted in stress, long hours, stress, frustration, stress, missed workouts, stress, not cleaning the house, and stress. On top of that, I’ve got two websites to write for–Semi-Charmed Wife, which as you all know, has been woefully neglected of late, and the Examiner.

My husband and I have obligations/plans for the next four weekends, which gives me little time to recuperate/catch up/regain a tenuous relationship with my sanity and means that I have to squeeze all of my writing into the few hours between the time I get home from work and the time I go to sleep. As you can probably imagine, sitting at the computer is EXACTLY WHAT I WANT TO DO after a long, stressful day at work of sitting at the computer.

(Note: It is exactly THE OPPOSITE of what I want to do, which is de-stress and/or sleep.)

Then there’s that whole pregnant thing. Yeah. Apparently, it makes me a wee bit emotional/hormonal, not to mention that I could easily sleep 16 hours a day if I were allowed to do so. And I’m a bit worried. I’ve lost some weight over the past few weeks (not much–just a few pounds), which my doctor assures me is totally normal for the first trimester, but I can’t help but wonder if the constant stress of the pressure cooker that is my life might have something to do with it.

My husband and I talked, and I’ve come to the conclusion that–contrary to what I want to believe–I can’t keep going at this breakneck pace right now. It’s not good for me, and I can’t imagine it’s good for the baby.

I’m going to talk to my editor at the Examiner and see if I can cut back to posting 1-2 times per week. Seeing as she just emailed me to request that I start posting every day (I’ve been posting 4x/week and am only obligated to post 3x/week), I have serious doubts as to whether she’ll agree to my request. If she doesn’t, as much as I’d hate to, I think I’ll have to resign. The alternative would be giving up Semi-Charmed Wife, and I get too much joy/inspiration from it to even contemplate doing that.

Though I know that this decision is in my best interests, I hate being in this position. It’s hard to admit that I can’t do something, and I’m struggling not to feel like a quitter. Again, I know intellectually that I’m doing the right thing, but emotionally, it’s a different story.

Have you ever been in a similar situation? How did you handle it? I need advice!

I’m so excited! The fruits of my successful intention-manifestation experiment are finally… um, fruiting.

Anyway.

Hop on over to Examiner.com/dc and check out my page.

Oh, and let me know what you think of my first article!

Image from http://www.ardecfunding.com/images/plaintiff.jpg.

As I mentioned last week, I’ve been offered and have accepted a paid writing position. (By the way, today is the final day of the Community Experiment. Any results to report? Email or comment to let me know!) I’m extremely excited about this opportunity, and I absolutely cannot wait until the administrative boxes have all been checked and I can get started with the actual writing. It feels so good to know that I’ll be getting paid to do something I love!

Even though getting paid to write has been a goal of mine for YEARS, I might not have been as excited about this opportunity if it had arisen a year ago. As a matter of fact, I might have walked away from it. Why on earth, you may rightly ask, would I have been anything less than thrilled about a paid writing opportunity? What possible reason would I have had for ignoring it or turning it down?
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Ladies (and gents, if you’re out there), prepare to have your mind blown…

Do you remember the Community Experiment I started on July 1? The idea was that I (and any of you who played along) would set an intention to achieve something by July 31. At the end of the month, we’d check in and see what had manifested in our lives in response to that intention. I thought about setting an intention to manifest $1 million…

Image from http://www.millionaire500.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/milliondollardreaming.jpg

…but I decided to stick with something more realistic and believable. My intention was to secure a paid writing assignment unrelated to my full-time job by July 31, 2008.

Funny story.
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 I’ve officially reached “that age”. Pretty much every conversation I have with my girlfriends these days devolves into talk of babies–whether we want them, when to have them, how many to have, how to raise them, etc.. Ah, the joys of aging. Having kids isn’t an “if” for me–my husband and I know that we want children… someday. We’re just not sure when that someday will be. We want to be sure to have all of our ducks in a row before we take such a huge step in our lives. That’s the smart way to do things, right?

We’re both 30, so we’ve had more than a decade of adult freedom to do what we want, when we want, and how we want. That makes the prospect of bringing into the world a tiny person who will require and demand all of our time, attention, and resources absolutely terrifying. This is in stark contrast to most of my cousins, who had children in their teens. They were parents before they were finished being children. They never got to go to college–or in some cases, prom. They raised kids while working multiple jobs, often doing backbreaking manual labor. They scraped by as best they could. It was HARD, but they did it because they had no choice.

On the other hand, you have my husband and me, who are very financially secure, have substantial savings, have a solid marriage, and are totally convinced that we’re “not ready”. Worse, we don’t know when we’ll BE ready. We finally decided that we’ll probably start a family whenever our friends in the area start having kids. We figured that it’s just as good a time as any, because feeling “ready” will probably never come.

The great baby debate got me thinking about other things I put off because I’m “not ready”–like writing a book, for example. I’ve always wanted to be an author (still kind of up in the air as to whether that would be creative writing or some kind of nonfiction). I daydream about it, talk about it, think about it–hell, I even WRITE about wanting to be a writer. But I always come back to the same internal refrain: “The time’s not right. I need to wait until we have kids/I have more time/we buy a house/we pay off my student loans/move out of the area/I become a teacher and have summers off to write/we win the lottery/aliens land. I just need to get my ducks in a row before I can get started.”

Well, screw the damn ducks!

I’m slowly coming to the conclusion that the time is never going to be “right” for me to make a serious effort at living my dream. I will never feel “ready”. Those voices telling me to wait until I have my ducks in a row aren’t “smart” voices–they’re the voices of fear, insecurity, apathy, indecision, and self-doubt. 

A recent article by Slade Roberson described this self-defeating chain of thought: “I’m stuck at A and want to get to Z. As soon as I know what Steps C through Y are — as soon as I make sure Steps C through Y are there for me — I’ll happily proceed to Step B. That’s the responsible, logical, safe way to proceed.” Slade believes that Step C and Step D don’t even exist until you pick up your foot and take Step B. I tend to agree.

My awesome personal cheerleader, Kelli, recently sent me the Writer’s Market, a compilation of resources and opportunities for paid writing. (Thanks Kelli!!) So here’s what I’m going to do (and I need you all to hold me accountable for this because I’m as slippery as an eel when it comes to talking myself out of things)–I’m going to pick a writing project from that book, post about it, and set a deadline for completing and submitting it. If I don’t complete the project, I will send $20 to each and every one of you who calls me on it. It may seem silly, but I need to know that there’s a negative consequence to not following through on this.

What have you been waiting to start until your ducks are in a row? What step can you take to get started RIGHT NOW? What can you do to hold yourself accountable?