So, working freelance has always been a feast or famine kind of thing.

But I take it as it comes because I work at home and try valiantly to schedule my projects so I don’t get too swamped. Usually 1 or 2 big projects per month, and I try to make sure the launch times don’t overlap. This is in addition to a few small upgrade projects, and some maintenance jobs.

I took some time off during the break and tried to push everyone off until after the new year. Which was easy to do, because no one really wants to launch a site *during* the holidays. Of course, there were a couple of upgrade projects and maintenance work, but nothing too heavy.

Well, now I’m officially overbooked. I have FOUR projects right now. Two of them are launching within days of each other.

One project suddenly had a launch date made known to me just 9 days before the launch date. When I found out, all that existed was the framework, shopping cart set up, months old content and no graphic design. The launch date has been pushed out a few more days, but should happen by the end of next week.

Thankfully, I was working with Tiffany for the graphic design and Janalee for the copy, and they are both so awesome to work with. They also both own and are the creative team of MA! Motherhood with Attitude, a site I built for them. I also was able to set up the shipping API using some of the code that May wrote for me for a previous client.

The second project is a redesign of the Scitec, Inc., which will launch in at the end of the month. I’m working with a new graphic designer, Mike Daymon of Daymon Ad Design. He’s been fun to work with. And while I have met with our client in person, and we all live in the same town, I have never met Mike face to face. We’ve had one phone conversation and LOTS and LOTS of email between us. Exactly how I like to work on this kind of project. What really works is that he seems to work the same hours as I do – late evenings, after 10 PM and often past midnight.

The third project is for a Mike’s Trikes – a local guy, and west sider who makes cool chopper-like non-motorized trikes and bikes for riding. We’re still in the design and gather content phase of that one.

The fourth project is for comic book artist and writer Terry Moore. He was essentially my first “big” client, certainly my first internationally known client. He started with one title, Strangers In Paradise, that we centered the website around. Now that series is over and he is writing a new title, Echo, which has it’s own URL, and then we have another site for Terry’s blog. Now we are going to redesign things so that everything thing is under one website. I have set up the basic framework of the site. They are going to hire a graphic designer and his son, Trey, is gathering and managing the content. It’s a BIG job.

Coming up the pipe: CSG|PR is starting a digital division. I will be working with another graphic designer, Anne Nichols, on this project. Also, Scitec, Inc. owns Telematrix, who also would like a new site built.

I think that’s it – along with maintenance with the ASHRAE sites (Pikes Peak, Rocky Mountain, Utah and Idaho) and Cartoon Books, along with some upgrade projects for Collection Drawer.

I’m thankful for the work. We so need the money right now.

But for the last 2 weeks I’ve been heads down on the computer while the boys are at school whenever I’m not meeting with clients, and also after everyone else is in bed. I missed the last school board meeting and a community meeting about the D11 school closures.

The house is a wreck. It’s all I can do to get the boys to ArtSports and birthday parties. I took some time off and had 6 boys last week for a play date together at the park. Today, they don’t have school and I want to take them to the zoo.

I can see the light at the end of the tunnel – barely, but there it is. I’ll just keep cranking.

It’s true. I really do. I don’t have much time to do it anymore, but I wish I did.

When I was in junior high, high school and college, I spent time in the arcades. Frogger, Missile Command, Joust, Dig Dug, Centipede, Gauntlet, Rampage, Crystal Castles and my all time favorite – Tempest. At home we had an Atari system – Pitfall and Space Invaders were my favorites to play. We even played Castle Wolfenstein on our Apple IIe.

After I joined the Air Force in 1988, I guess I lost interest. We were always going out and partying (or staying in the dorms and partying) when we weren’t working/eating/sleeping/working out.

Then I think I was anti-game for a while. I really wasn’t interested in having a game system in the house.

In 2001, through a radio station giveaway at my dojo, I entered a drawing and won an XBox. I immediately thought that I would just give it to my nephew Tyler.

Until I took it home and tried it. Then I was hooked. I think the first game I got was Munch’s Odyssey. I really had fun with it.

Then came Halo.

Cue Halo Theme

I was hooked. I picked a great game to be my very first first person shooter game. We played cooperative campaign all the way through on Easy, Normal, Heroic and Legendary. Throughout my pregnancy with Zander, we played nearly every night. After Zander was born, I swear the familiar sounds of us killing aliens lulled him to sleep at night. When friends came over, it was all about multiplayer – and the joy of hearing “Killing Spree” as I mowed down all my friends with a sniper rifle or a rocket launcher.

As Zander got a bit older, I wasn’t able to play as much. Zander and I spent a good deal of time watching Dad play Morrowind. Then Zevan was born. And later in 2004, Halo 2 was released. Of course we got it. And the discovery of wielding multiple weapons and the ability to use an energy sword made the game really fun. What sucked was that it had a cliffhanger ending. And Halo 3 would be created for XBox 360. Which we still don’t have. And I have not yet played.

When Zander was 4, we introduced him to video games on our XBox. Cars, Finding Nemo and Godzilla. Then we had to take Godzilla away until he turned 5 because it made him overexcited and prone to tantrums. Then we got a Nintendo 64 which got him introduced to more kid friendly games like Yoshi’s Story (which I love but am not very good at) and Pokemon Snap. And Zevan got into the games as well.

And then they graduated to a GameCube. And now they’re playing games that I actually enjoy playing with them – like Teen Titans or Lego Star Wars. And that they actually ask me to play with them.

Nothing warmed my heart more than, “Mom, you have to play Teen Titans with us. We always get farther on the level when you play with us.”

It’s even more fun when Doug comes in, and we invite him to join us. Yep, it’s pretty cool.

I’m glad I’m a mom that likes playing video games.

So, I came back from a camping trip last weekend, turned on my computer and was greeted with

Primary Hard Disk 0 Not Found
Primary Hard Disk 1 Not Found

This happened to me before, and just reseating the IDE cables fixed it. So I did that again. No dice this time.

I tried replacing the IDE cable but that didn’t fix it either. Since it’s rare to have 2 hard drives fail, and I had this error before but the hard drives turned out to be fine, I thought it might be a bad IDE controller on the motherboard so I took it to PC Onsite.

PC OnSite said that the primary hard drive was bad, but the secondary was okay (my data hard drive), so he just replaced the bad drive. He told me that the drive was unrecognized by everything he put it in.

So then I took the bad drive home, installed it as the secondary (slave) drive in the machine, and then got the same error –

Primary Hard Disk 0 Not Found
Primary Hard Disk 1 Not Found

Not good. Even as a secondary drive, it causes the primary drive not to be recognized.

Next I had Blake from Colorado Support take a look at it. He’s very good and very trustworthy. No dice.

So, all my data files are safe – my photos, my client files and websites, household files, etc.

However, I don’t have a recent back up of my Outlook PST file. I thought I had done a back up in April (when I got the error for the first time), but I can’t find it anywhere. The only back up I can find is from 11/17/07. So I’m basically out the last 6 months of emails.

CRAP.

I could also use a copy of my WS_FTP ini file and my Firefox profile (with saved passwords and form entries), but those are less critical.

So, there are hard drive recovery services that charge a minimum of $1000, and often much more, to open up the hard drive in a clean room in an effort to retrieve lost data. I can’t afford that. That’s crazy. Particularly for 1-3 files.

I’m going to follow up on 2 more leads locally, then I’m going to look into a cheapie option from Comprehensive Computing in Virginia. Worse case, no data. Best case, I get my Outlook file back for $75.

Whew! My luck’s gotta turn around here soon!

So, we went for a “long” run today. Although May did actually protest, believing that she would only run 3-4 miles, I convinced her to try for the bridge/overpass and back, like we did last week.

This role reversal is amusing to me.

Anyway, it went by quickly because we were discussing a possible new venture together, where she does the dB back end and I do all the web interface stuff in PHP.

Today is my day to myself. Doug takes the boys to school, and Grandpa picks them up from school. I can do a long run, have a coffee with May, and get a whole lot of work done. Which is good because I had to finish up the Tillie work today, and also do more work on the Rocky Mountain ASHRAE site.

And, I spent a good chunk of time today making appts – for a facial (Monday at 12:45 PM), an appt with the optometrist (Tuesday at 8:30 AM) and for a mammogram (2/25 at 3:00 PM). The dental office was closed today, so I have to make that appt next week.

And I even called a potential client to get an idea about the project they would like me to work on. That I would like Mike Jackson to help me out with if it turns out to be an ASP deal.

I finished off the chili that I made on Sunday for the Superbowl party. And watched “Make Me a Supermodel” as I ate lunch.

Then I worked some more on client projects. I’ve got a couple new ones starting next week, so I have to finish up the ones I am working on now ASAP.

When the boys came home, I was actually glad to see them and was able to focus on talking with them about their day. It felt really good. My other work days are shorter than this, since I have to pick up the boys from school and have lunch with them first. I need to prioritize better on those days…

After my run, I picked up the boys, so we could head to grandma & grandpa’s for lunch. When I picked them off from the office (I was late), Zevan was crying and wanting to back to the playground for more recess. I had to carry him to the car, with him protesting. That was pretty annoying.

Then I got another call from an unknown long distance number on my phone. Imagine my surprise when it turned out to be Harish, who is on the XML team for DHL. With Zevan crying in the background, of course. The life of a WAHM, right?

So, we’ve been going through this nearly comical fiasco trying to get international shipping to Canada through their API. It’s been a disaster. Mostly because there’s a breakdown in communication between Spence (who I thought all this time was our DHL rep, but he’s actually a reseller) and the DHL XML team. Wow. Talk about bad customer service skills. This has been going on since early December, and both parties take 4-5 to answer my emails, if they answer them at all. So, getting a call from Harish was a shocker.

I’m not sure what lit a fire under him today, but he was all of a sudden trying to get to the bottom of things. He was surprised to find out that I actually have a live, working web page with domestic rates. I promised to send him all my account information as soon as I got back to my office. Yes, this whole conversation took place with Zevan crying and whining in his carseat behind me. Sheesh!

We got to grandma & grandpa’s and all was well again with the world.

After lunch, I headed home to work. And I had a phone meeting with Vijaya from Cartoon Books to talk about working on their site.

I’m very excited to work with them. I just love Jeff’s work, and they are really friendly, warm people. I actually did a little happy dance when we finished up. Comic book related sites are just the most fun for me!

Well, I went through the stuff in the van and library and updated my listing of stuff for sale on the West Side Moms marketplace.

And today I delivered stuff to the east side – at the parking lot of WalMart on Powers/Palmer Park.

I shopped a bit and picked up 2 new sport bras and sport tanks. I know, I know, never try anything new before a race…

But all my sport bras are old and the straps are too thin and they don’t support me well. I’ll try these new ones on my run tomorrow and make sure I have lots of body glide for the race.

Today I got a box from LeapFrog with new LeapPad books, a LeapPad game and a new Leapster cartridge. I’ll be introducing 2 new Leapster games to the boys for the flight on Saturday.

I spent nearly the entire day and late into the night, working on Legend Antiques, Rocky Mountain ASHRAE and El Paso ASHRAE. Whew! And I’ve still got stuff to do, so I’ll probably work a while longer and then hit the sack.

Took the boys back to school this morning. And, YAY! Ms. Catherine is back. We chatted briefly about new motherhood (mostly the lack of sleep). It’s so nice to have her back.

Zevan had a tough time going back to school today. He protested quite a bit, as I took off his coat, changed his shoes and signed him in. Miss Sheila took over, and in the end, I was actually able to wave good bye without him running to me and crying. Which was good.

I slipped on the ice in the driveway when I was taking the trash out and landed on my hands and bum. Ouch. Then I went for my 2 mi run.

Afterwards, I did a Gilad Total Body Workout. Not too shabby, huh? Trying to keep on my workout schedule.

When I picked the boys up, they were totally fine. We picked up lunch at McDs (and they were out of Bionicles toys – that frakkin McDs is always out of the good toys before they should be – and Zander was upset about that), and ate at my parents house.

Mondays they will be at my parents until about 4 PM – part of the new routine.

So I spent my afternoon working on the Legend Antiques site and a little bit on Rocky Mtn ASHRAE. Finally DHL got back to me about the international shipping API. Apparently we need to be certified. What a pain in the ass. UPS doesn’t make us jump through all these frakking hoops. Sheesh!

I picked them up at 4:30 PM and it was snowing again. We decided to make a Starbucks run, and then were unable to get up the hill on 19th to the house. It was so bad, it took me 15-20 minutes to turn around and go back down the hill. UGH.

We came back up Mesa Road, and down 19th, turned on to Mesa View Court, and… couldn’t make it up the street. I tried everything. No luck. Finally I had Zander go inside. Zevan was sleeping so I let him stay in the car as I shoveled, swept and salted. Still no go. I left it there until Doug got home.

I need to get snow tires tomorrow.

Doug got home and after much more shoveling, sweeping, salting, then PUSHING – I got the car in the driveway.

YAY! Zander exclaimed.

Yay, indeed.