I am weary. It has been a long day. I got a bunch of writing done on my other blogs to the point that I'm almost caught up on my work. I posted links to stuff on social media and I'm waiting for people to notice it. My goal right now is to hit between fifteen and twenty reads on a given blog post for a given blog. It was mentally exhausting to do three days worth of blogging on three blogs. For some reason, it is easier for me to sit down and work on a novel for an equivalent length of time than it is to do the blogging stuff right now.
I had a dentist appointment yesterday that actually went pretty well. I was a little nervous going in because I've been having some sensitivity in a tooth that has a lot of work on it. The dentist explained that the filling material transmitted heat and cold a lot easier than enamel and that was a relief. As was the fact that I had no cavities. On the whole, my oral health is a world better than it was a bit over ten years ago when I got so depressed I stopped taking care of my teeth. This resulted in my having a bunch of cavities, one almost bad enough to require a root canal. Thanks to the Eastman Dental Clinic, those got taken care of and my dental care has been excellent. And they have been patiently teaching me how to properly take care of my teeth. I'm always asking questions about how I am doing and how I can improve.
That experience with getting all those fillings scared the hell out of me and made me change my approach to self-care. I still struggle with it because of being taught that my needs come last out of everyone in the household and that it is selfish for me to spend more than the bare minimum of time on my self care. Between the diabetes, my skin issues, and my eyesight getting slowly worse, I've been forced to take time for these things that I was all but prohibited when I was growing up. I am tired and I could probably use a shower but I don't know if I'm going to get one tonight. It depends on if the kids use up all the hot water and if I have the energy for it (and the associated task of moisturizing everything now).
I didn't feel like washing dishes or cooking dinner but I pushed through that. We had meatloaf and cheesy mashed potatoes for dinner tonight. I didn't have the Italian sausage to add to the recipe, so I used more beef. The kids didn't notice the difference and still enjoyed their meal. I ran out of space to put dishes to dry earlier. So, I will have to wait until tomorrow to wash the broiler pan from Monday's burgers and the dishes from tonight. My life is painfully boring and domestic on this front. My biggest accomplishments today it seems, aside from writing, was getting all my laundry folded and put away; washing a fuck ton of dishes; and making dinner.
I'm really frustrated with how my tarot reading business is going. I was logged in for my usual hours and only got one call. Which netted me three dollars, that's one dollar per hour before you factor in stuff like tax. This has been the case for a few weeks now. I don't know if it is a case of clients not having the money for readings in the face of prices for everything going up or if there's something else going on. I did an experiment a few days ago of logging in at nine in the morning and staying logged in until four thirty in the afternoon. I only made fifty dollars the entire day. This is a sharp decrease from what I had going on in September. In September, I averaged something between five to ten dollars per hour on my calls. I ended the week with something around forty to fifty dollars.
A part of me says I should just give it up. Another part of me says that this is just a fallow period and I need to hang in there. I just get anxious that we're going to need that small extra bit of income over the coming months. I know that my anxiety is based in the fact that I grew up poor and we needed every dime we could get our hands on. But I am struggling with how to market my business and my books. I'm actually getting some small royalty checks for my books. It's averaging to be around twenty dollars a month. I am hoping that the holidays may mean more sales but I'm not hanging my hat on that.
Suffice it to say, there's a lot of balls up in the air right now. I've been slowly gathering things for Yule. Because of my issues over the Summer and early Autumn, I didn't get anything made for anybody. I don't have time to craft stuff between now and the 25th. I just don't know what to get some folks and I am struggling with anxiety over pricing since going shopping and observing how much the cost of stuff has gone up since the last time I did serious shopping. A small ham should not be over ten dollars at the discount grocery store, but that's where we're at.
And this isn't even looking at my mental health picture right now. Let's just say that I'm tired, dealing with seasonal depression, and the different parts of my brain are arguing with each other on a semi-regular basis. Also, last week, I had three panic attacks. It sucked. I don't even know why they happened. But, I am struggling to find time to do my therapy writing in the face of everything else going on. I barely find time to get my daily work done. I haven't been sleeping great and I'm sure it's tied to all of that. However, I am a fighter. I'll just keep my shield up and press forward until I have ground the problem beneath my heel or forced the situation to one that I can bear, like I always do.
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