Yes, I’m falling behind… still.
And it’s bugging me.
No, it’s not procrastinating… But sometimes it feels like it. Honestly, I’m just so busy trying to keep up to my regular commitments that I’m not finding the time for starting an internet business properly. Here’s this week’s schedule (starting with today):

  1. Every day: get up at 6:30, leave home by 7:20 am to get to work by 08:00. Work until at LEAST 5pm, probably later (usually 6 or 6:30pm, except Thursday & Friday, when I go get my kids).
  2. Monday: Teach Knights of the Northern Realm workshop on shortsword & buckler vs. longsword - 7-9 pm. After that I have to complete Heavy Metal’s 2007 taxes (probably up until midnight or later working on this).
  3. Tuesday: Teach/monitor martial arts class 7pm -10 pm. If I haven’t finished previous taxes, do them now! Otherwise start on Blue Mountain’s taxes.
  4. Wednesday: Teach silversmithing class - 7pm - 10pm. Finish Blue Mountain’s taxes.
  5. Thursday: pick my kids up, get home by 6pm. Must have Blue Mountain Painting’s taxes done and deliverable by 6:30 pm.
  6. Friday: Pick up my kids, get home by 6pm. If weather permits, put together the fence that isn’t finished in my back yard.
  7. Saturday am: It’d be nice to go to Shul, but I doubt I’ll have time. Pick up pumpkins and set up for cutting practise to start at 1pm. Cutting practise from 1-4 pm. Evening to spend with kids and play and teach them. Daveed is learning to tell time on a standard clock face, and knows adding numbers up to 10. He has fun with this, and I’d like him to go to learn his numbers up to 20, since he’s getting bored with the others. He;s also learning to write his name. Ariana is learning to count and starting to learn to identify letters. [Daveed will be 4 on Dec 2nd, and Ariana turned 2 on Aug 18/08].
  8. Sunday: I spend all day with the kids today, and promised Daveed that we would go swimming this weekend if I had enough money (which I’m sure I will - I’ve been pretty good). They go to their mom’s at 5:30 pm. After that I will work on whatever items on my to do list I am able to.

This pretty much fills my whole week before doing anything extra outside of the above routine. I don’t know if I’m going to be able to make this goal I set back in August in only 3 or 4 hours a week, since that is what it seems I’m able to commit to this. I originally thought I’d be able to commit more to it than that. It’s too hard to do it with two little kids around on the days they are with me. And because I try to get so much done during the nights they aren’t with me, I’m completely exhausted by the time they are with me, so I end up sleeping the whole 10+ hours they do each night.

Still, I’m not going to stop trying! I need to have this, since what I make during the day isn’t enough for me to have any future for myself with. I have too high financial committments, and can’t just go back to being the Bohemian artist like I could have 7 or 8 years ago. If my expenses were as low today as they were ten years ago (relatively speaking), then I would have money to spare! However, I can’t take my kids and me and live in a shoddy one bedroom basement or attic - well, I could, but I don’t think that would be so great for my kids. But it is always an option if i’m forced to down the road…

I sometimes wonder if I should use this blog as a complete personal journal, not just a progress report on my goals for my professional and business life. I’m a bit shy about putting my complete opinions and what-have-you on here.

Honestly, I like my job well enough. I don’t like how working for someone else dictates certain things in my life. And I don’t like that I’m making less now than I did a year ago (significantly). What do you do? I have to have a steady income because of the pending divorce and the issues surrounding that and childcare/custody. My kids mean mroe to me than anything else in the world. And so, I’m willing to do whatever it takes to give them a decent life. Their mother… well, she seems at times to want to use me and them to get herself ahead. But I also wonder if that is just her odd view of what she thinks she deserves for giving birth to them both. It’s strange to me…

I want so much more for my kids than I had that it is almost silly! And what I see the possibilities are is unbelievable. I see people, even those in my family, who have so much more and haven’t worked any harder than I have. Yes, they had a better start and better teaching from their elders, which makes a HUGE difference. The lessons you learn as a young person really do give you the direction you go in life, regardless of how smart you are. And the lessons I learned were mostly useless or street tough lessons. They sure didn’t teach me how to get ahead financially or how to manage money properly. I’ve learned mroe from “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” than I did from anyone in my family. And now, at this late point in my life, I’m trying to implement some of that knowledge. And I’ll do it! I swear! It juut might take me a little longer than I had originally planned.