Whew!

Fulfilled another project for an Elance client today, so I'm heading back into the black again after a couple months of very little work. Now I have three "regulars," not just one, so I expect this is the last time I'll find myself absolutely floundering as a self-employed copywriter. I feel a whole lot better! I'm not out of the woods yet financially, but it's a'coming -- I can feel it in my bones!

Jackie has joined a workplace "Biggest Loser" contest so I'm her 5 a.m. accountability partner. We went for a 30-minute walk this morning, and will every day from now on. I'll try to get her to walk "my" route in a week or so because it's a 40 minute route (32 blocks) and that's what we need to start losing excess weight. I was walking the 32 block route twice a day up until we started yard work, tree clearing, and frequent bike riding several weeks ago; I figure the yard work and tree clearing alone make up for at least one of the 32 block walks!

Our garden has peas, corn, lettuce, carrots, cucumbers and a couple different types of squash pushing up through the dirt now. And one of our tomato plants produced its first ripe tomato this past weekend; Jackie scarfed it down and called it "great. Mm-mmm... perfect." Well, would we expect anything less from a garden we planted and nurtured and sweated over? Of course not! That would be downright rude!

Our grape arbor is greening out and some of the fruit trees already have little fruits on them. That's pretty good for the northern hemisphere this close to the Canadian border.

Jackie planted the corn and carrots too close to each other; we'll have to thin them out at some point unless some wild bunnies do the honor (where the carrots are concerned). Jackie says I planted the second row of peas too far away from the wire fencing that they'll need to be tacked to at some point. Hey, we're new at this. It's gonna take a season or two to know the proper procedures. This is our first year as adults. When we were kids, Mom and Dad were in charge of the plantings, and that was fifty years ago. I don't think either of us were paying the least bit of attention back then. And of course, Jackie didn't read the seed packets. (I did, so I have no excuse where the peas are concerned.)

What else? I'm getting 11% of the Elance projects that I bid in -- up from 2% a year ago. It helps to have certified test results, certified work background, and lots and lots of great reviews. It gives Elance buyers a good feeling to know that others have found my copywriting services exemplary. I am even being asked to bid on projects at a rate of one or two a day. I can't accept them all -- I don't qualify for all of them (I don't write in the real estate, IT, or finance sectors at all unless the client has specific talking points I can work from, because I have no working knowledge of those sectors) -- but it's great to be asked!

Guess that's about all for this time. Oh! Two teenagers from other countries -- Italy and Germany -- wrote to me about De this week. They had more questions about him, some of which I couldn't answer (what was his favorite color, food, vacation spot), but most of them I could. I hope both of them will contribute to the second edition of ENDURING LEGACY because they're very young and it's positive proof that De's legacy lives on and on and on!