1) Did a bunch of work on my computer in the morning, then off to a several hour, productive, meeting throughout the afternoon.
2) Then off to cook and clean up a healthy meal for Zac, and Ben: Boiled chicken thighs, Angel Hair pasta, mushrooms, asparagus, broccoli, green beans.  (The other children weren’t there as they had gone with their father to Sarah’s first night for her ballet performance.)  And, again, I have to say, Zac is doing so well with his diet and I’m so proud of him.  Prior to this he refused to eat chicken and most vegetables and now he barely complains.  Thankfully.  Tonight he was telling me tonight how amazed he is that I can do so much with so little.  The “so little” is due to the limited amount of foods he is allowed.  The dietician handed us three, yes count them three seperate diets.   One for low sodium, one for low potassium, and one for Hemodialysis which is low sodium, low potassium, low phosphorus.  Now, what I have to do is cross check each for what he can and can’t eat.  By the time I’m done the list is, more than narrow.  Thankfully I spent 23 years cooking a whole food diet for my family.  And thankfully I’ve always been good at “doing a lot with a little”.  One thing I’m good with is food.  It’s something that I’ve developed over the years.  I wasn’t born with it by any means.  And we’ll just ignore the first time I made homemade french fries and a column of fire, the width of the pan, shot to the ceiling and wouldn’t quit till I got the courage to lift the fry pan out of the pan.  Then my landlord came five minutes after this event and I wouldn’t open the door.  I just talked through it, to his annoyance.  But how could I?  The place was filled with smoke!
4) Went to Walmart to grocery shop for meals for Zac.
5) Took groceries back to his home.  Left the groceries on the kitchen floor since the last time I shopped his father said, “You spent forty dollars grocery shopping, supposedly for food, but I haven’t seen any.”  This time I let him know, “I was going to put the groceries away, but I left them for you so that you can see them this time.”  That’s what happens when you primarily shop the produce section.
6) Took one of John Solomon’s prints to France’s home so she can take it to the office tomorrow for the woman who ordered it.
7) Finally got my mail, after not picking it up for two weeks, and I’m overdue on my power bill…again.  I don’t know what it is about paying my power bill.
Did some cleaning around my apartment.  I love it after I clean.  And although I love it and I know that cleaning is next to Godliness I just wish someone else could get this part of the “Godly”.
9) Sat down to blog, smiled, and my lips cracked.

Night, love ya,
Theresa Jane
-oh, Zac went to school today.  He said it felt weird after he had missed so many days and one of his friends said they thought he had died and happy to see him again.  Although he laughed I could tell he felt touched.
-I just remembered earlier I decided I was going to talk more about my mom, me, and my healing and then forgot, tomorrow I’ll do that

It was 7:45 a.m. when I went into my bedroom to sleep.  My room was cast in a pink hue from the sun filtering through the silky pink curtains. I buried my pajamaed self under the pile of blankets, between the soft white flannel sheets, and waited for sleep.  My thoughts drifted to the memories of the occasional times when my ex-husband would work all night for his corporate job.  That work went to build their business.  “Well”, I said, as I pulled the covers up over my head and around my face leaving just enough space for my nose and mouth, “this work and time spent was to build my business. Work I’m going benefit from and will make a difference in our world.  The lost sleep was worth it.”

I was up again at 10:30 a.m. downing a glass of water and rubbing sleep from my eyes. I padded over to the same chair that the day before I had spent 20 hours in, sat, and responded to the important emails I had expected to find there.  An hour later I was back under my covers for a few more hours of sleep. When I got up this time I went straight to the computer to check emails and see where things had progressed, I responded, and then made a hot cup of Orange Blossom tea into my blue glass mug.  It steamed curly wisps into the air as I checked on other things I had set in motion yesterday on the internet.  Then I showered, dressed, blow dried, and left for work.

In the time that I have gone down the path of, how long has it been…the last month, discussing !BLAM!ming my parents and then onward to my kids and I, I have kept the work I do with our business humming right along.  It has absorbed much of my days and nights as I revolved it around my children, the holidays, and working.  Much has been done and much planned.  Much of what has been planned is now being constructed or is done.  One of those “things” you’re seeing right now, my blog into my own self-hosted site so I can enjoy the benefits that accompany it and the privilege of having my own “.com”. There’s been other things too, we’ve added a lot to the web site, John Solomon started his own blog which John and I worked getting set up and still tweek, and other things of  much more larger in capacity and some that are the little but very significant things. But all in all the work of laying the foundation for our business is strongly under way and I’m excited and thankful.

I find this project to be exhilarating and challenging all at the same time.  I’m learning the ropes of being a business woman and enjoy the growth that I am able to look back at and see of myself when I started hobbling around seeking to learn after my divorce to today.  I wrote a post about that some time back.  I’ll see if I can find it and link it after my closing.  I am looking forward to the day when our business produces my salary and I can fully devote my time and attention to its care.

I want to close with saying, I’m glad for all of you, my friends that are along with me on my journey.  That of finding myself as I come out of all the years of housewife, the trauma of my childhood, and learn to become a entrepreneur business woman/film maker/mom… of 8 of the greatest kids on earth.  You’re support is appreciated beyond any thing words could ever express.

Night, love ya,
Theresa Jane
-here’s the link for that post I mentioned http://wp.me/pMvwD-iY

Load of laundry.
Check bank balance.  Call bank.  Wait on hold.  Problem fixed.
Check email.
Burn a silly movie I made to DVD.  Check it on TV.  It works!

Check leads of information from those follow on Twitter.  Read.  Read.  Read.  Take notes.  Print info.
Write blog post.
Steamy hot shower.
Walmart:  “Why is my bill $31.00?  Jeepers Cats, $14 for two bags of grapes?  God, how much were they a pound… $2.39!  Why didn’t I pay attention??  That’s the last of my fresh grape juice for the year.
At computer:  Supposed to be able to download audio books for free from my local library.  I have the business card right there in front of me telling me that it’s possible.  I look everywhere.  Can’t’ find a single spot to hook up to this feature.  Someone tell me why I can’t find this?  Why isn’t it straight forward??  Why, even when I dig around I still can’t find it?  This is taking too long.  Got to do something else related to business.

This is my library Love my library.

Lunch: Homemade hot cocoa

Dig deeper into Shelfari, to really learn this site.  Decide: this is really an awesome site.  Discover there’s an area for authors to create a page for themselves and their books.  Look at what other authors have done.  Did you know that Stephen King has written 75 books and 7 under a psudo name!!  Astounding.  Scanned to find out how to create an author page for John1′s.  Can’t figure it out.  WHY???????  Look some more.  No go.  WHY????????

Write this blog post.

Work on a document I’ve been creating.
Look at clock, 3:45, want to get the kids from school.  More work.  4:30, still want to get kids from school.  No time really.  Have so much to do.  Plus need to finish getting info together for meeting tomorrow night and have to factor in a class at Apple store tomorrow as well.  5:15.  Pointless to get kids from school.

End result:  Didn’t have any time to see my kids today.  I miss them.  That’s the crapper about divorce.  You have to purposefully go to see your children.  No time.  No see.  It sucks.  They don’t just stream in the door, shouting, “Hey mom!” drop their back packs on the floor, give you a hug and kiss, and tear off for the kitchen in search of a snack.  Instead your home echos hollow without their youthful voices scenting the air with it’s delicate fragrance. The silence made my heart ache and I drifted back to yesterday.  When I was playing around with Caleb.  We were being silly.  Laughing and teasing.  With Christmas coming I spontaneously asked him “What is the one thing you wish you could have?”  Without adding “for Christmas”,   Before I spoke those words I thought, he’d say, “to go to Disney for a week” or “to have my own laptop”.  However the moment the words left my lips I knew.   My breathing constricted.  The clock stopped ticking.  But it was too late to pull the question back.  If I could have inhaled them right back into my mouth, sucked them out of existence, I would have.  To avoid the, in our faces pain that would steal our joy and stab at his little heart and mine.  Instead when I inhaled my next breath the words that softly left his mouth, devoid of giggles were, “To have you and daddy together again.”  Sullen sadness filled the space.  I drew him to me.  We hugged each other into a deep embrace and held ourselves there.  Tears pooled in my eyes as I stroked his soft hair, “I wish that was the case too honey.  I wish we all lived together.  Oh how I wish.  But that just can’t be and it totally stinks.  It makes me sad too.”  A few minutes passed, we separated, and went on just a little less silly, a little less giggly.

Dinner: Mashed potatoes with white gravy made from the broth of the chicken thighs I cooked, and bread with butter: comfort food.

Eat and listen to Duma Key by Stephen King.
Talk to John2 for a while.
Finally put load of laundry into dryer.
Brush teeth.  Change out of day clothes into night clothes.
Broke a nail.  Crap.  Well there’s a pattern on my right hand now, every other nail is short.
Think about doing dishes.
Try to eject DVD I burned earlier from inside Mac.  Won’t eject.  Look up on internet what to do.  Do all three steps.  Great.  It’s stuck.  So what now?  Don’t want to take in to genius bar. . .  Light bulb goes on.  I took it out earlier and viewed it on my TV . . .
Work on a new blog post that came to me.  Edit it.
Come over and edit this blog post.
Result: three blog posts today.  That’s a record

Night, Love ya,
Theresa Jane
-who doesn’t think she’s going to post all three posts today.  I’m saving at least one for another day.  Want to go over it again.

-I quit working on my business and arrived at their home arrived at 2 and began to bake Halloween cookies for all my kiddos. I made the Nestle Toll House Pumpkin cookies and the Pillsbury Shape cookies with the ghosts. Pillsbury won hands down.
-Put the face tattoo on Zachary as he wanted to be a tiger. I was a little nervous about this full face tattoo working out well. But it pretty much turned out fine. We had some parts that broke apart, but luckily between his glasses and the long bangs he sports it covered the discrepancy.
-Around 3:30 I did Graces make-up, she had a party to attend before Trick or Treating. Then I did Caleb’s.
-Sat down at one of their computers and researched some more about E-books and sunk deeper into a new forum I joined for bloggers, it’s called Problogger. So far it seems quite helpful. I’ll keep you posted.
-Then it was time to do Dan’s make-up, which he wanted me to hurry because he was going Trick or Treating with, you guessed it, Brent. He had waited a bit long to come and get ready. I had sent his sister to get him earlier but he decided it was too early, it could wait. Sooooo, he ended up being the one having to deal with the time it took me to do it and for the pictures that I insisted we were going to take. He made it out the door with a bit of time to spare, but you know how kids are. They want to get going…..
-Then Grace returned. John2 arrived and changed. Caleb dressed. Leah, John2′s sort of girl friend arrived. We left.
-We went house to house for about a half hour and Sarah and her friend arrived to join us. More fun!!! I was so glad to have Sarah with us her schedule with her school I don’t see much of her at all anymore. Sort of catch glimpses of her.
-Took lots of pictures. Took a little video, but doubt it will be any good, too dark.
-Finally 2 1/2 plus hours later we returned to their house to size up the booty and compare what treasures lay within their bags. I have to say Grace is awfully possessive of her Peanut Butter cups! Man. John2 split his with me. Zach let me have a couple pieces from his bag then said, “Don’t eat it all!” As if!
My kids are loaded with more candy than I think they’ve ever pulled in. Those hefty sacks are going need monitoring and piece mealing! Scott, their father, will be complaining in the morning when he sees all they got.
-I got a hankering for a movie, but none of us, me included, wanted to do a late show at the theater. So we scanned Hulu. Free movie streaming from the internet, furniture realigned, Leah, John2, Daniel, Me, Zach, Ben, Grace blankets drawn up around the chin, Caleb snuggled up under my arm and off we went into “A Dog’s Breakfast”. OMG I laughed till it hurt. We all laughed till it hurt. It is a dark comedy, perfect for Halloween. It edges up to Halloweeny material. I’m not saying more than that. I don’t want to ruin it for you. Just watch this movie!! I intend to own it one day. I will add that thankfully Dan and Cal zonked out. Kept me from having to tell them they needed to go to bed because the content would creep them out too much. But that was only because of their age.

Love ya,
Theresa Jane
-who will post more pictures tomorrow, now it’s 1:47 AM and I need to hit the hay!

I love craving pumpkins. Love their flickering lights at night.

I wanted to take a quick minute and let you know that I found the pumpkin in the last post and this one at this site: dreamstime I really like this site. It’s loaded with free and for a fee stock photos. Very nice quality and very usable images! There are loads of photos that are only 20 cents. The ones for a fee, you buy what equates to a loaded store card for the amount you want, make purchases, and work your way down to zero. Good deal. Easy. Fun. Meets all my criteria when I’m considering participating in something. The only part that wasn’t fun was reading the terms. Ugh. It went on and on and on. Please! Where’s the simple?? Really couldn’t they have said it in like, a few sentences? I just want to say that reading that was nearly a feat for me. I really do not like reading through all those term thingys, avoid them like the plague. Just seeing the length nearly made me click onward. The only reason I didn’t was my preview of the sight convienced me want to see if they were EASY to use and really, really free. From my reading, and by no means trust my reading I’m no copyright lawyer, the free is free without snags attached, except in the case of making like more than 10,000 copies of literature with the image on it, then you need another license.

Okay, now I must get back to work. Need to do emails and continue scanning for a web site template. Oh you don’t know yet do you? Yesterday John2 and I began the big search for a template that was the perfect match for our company Free the Mind. We scanned through bunches of templates and sites. That was how I found the link to that new photo stock site, which caused me to go through a big detour, got all sentimental and inspired when I saw that pumpkin and birthed the Halloween post. So did we find THE template, not yet? We’ve found a few we liked, but there hasn’t been that, “That’s it” moment yet.

Well. Really. Now. I’ve got to get back at the business at hand. Emailing, template searching . . .

Love ya,
Happy Halloween Holiday!
Theresa Jane

It’s been a full day. John2 and I had two phone meetings today, one with that guy I mentioned before that’s been in film for over 20 years and helped us before. Then we had one with just us. Among other meeting results we, well he more than me, came up with the perfect logo idea for our company: Free The Mind Productions. Completely different then the direction we were going in. But that’s the way creativity moves. John1 grabbed the idea and ran. In no time flat he was emailing me his creation and the stationary! He even free drew the picture on the computer. It’s not super detailed mind you, but if I were to go about doing it I wouldn’t have had all that done in under an hour and half, tweaks included. But then he did see it clearly in his mind, so that totally helps. Being an artist totally helps. Working with a publishing program for years also helps. Well, I get some of the credit pie, because WE had the meeting. I mean without me where would we have been We’re letting the logo sit for a few days then we’ll come back and look at it again and finalize. Once done I’ll share it!

We lost our graphic artist that’s worked with us for a year. So I’ve been scrambling to find a new one. We have a client that wants a book printed. EEEkkkk. Been emailing and calling people for a couple days. Besides talking with a few, I viewed a boat load of portfolios today. They’ve all merged into one sticky blob up there in my brain.

Worked a teeny bit more on understanding optimizing. I went to Google AdWords and used the Keyword tool to see what were keywords for my blog and Red Book and Cotton’s web site. Took awhile to figure out where the heck the page was to actually put the web sites in, then it was sticky and didn’t want to work, but then, it generated a list. I also tried to see where the rankings were on our sites. Don’t worry I’m not suffering from grandiose thoughts. I didn’t think we’d be soaring to the top of the charts or anything. I was just curious. Took it a long time for it to do it’s thing and when it was done I had no earthly idea what it was telling me. Couldn’t find a “translator” anywhere. Blah!

Saw my kids for awhile. Zach true to form said, “I don’t have any homework.” Got ornery when I pressed the matter. Zach’s teachers seem to have been on a “no homework streak” for a couple months now. I smell failure in the wind. SIGH. Helped Dan learn his spelling list. Test tomorrow. Had it been today, wellllllll, let’s just say it’s a good thing it wasn’t. When we were done he asked, “Want to go to McDonald’s? I’m stressed. I’ll pay.” He whipped out his wallet and produced a 5 spot, proof of his creditability.” Bless his little heart. He used the last of his b-day money to go out with me. What was he stressed about? I asked and he said, a touch forlorn, “Oh I don’t want to talk about that. Anything but that.” And that’s what we did.

Love ya,
Theresa Jane
-whose putting her backside in bed, it’s now 2:30 am. Hope it’s not too late I feel my second wind kicking in. . .