Archive for February, 2009

Strawberry fields forever

By April on 13th February, 2009 1 Comment

So I guess I didn't scare you off, huh? Good! Welcome back!

Before I share today’s thoughts, I wanted to acknowledge a special occasion. 16 years ago today, I delivered my only son into this world. He and I have a song that we share so I wanted to post the video here.

I don’t know if that’s what is making me feel so emotional today or if its the weather (we’re getting a bunch of snow dumped on us) or all of this Valentine’s Day crap or if I’m just stressed and tired. But it seems like the slightest little thing is just bringing me to tears.

I was in the shower this morning and I was out of my favorite coconut body wash so I had to use Princess’ strawberry scented Suave for Kids. And that smell reminded me of how, when I was little, I always wanted strawberry scented shampoo. Then that brought back another memory.

I lived in Spain when I was about 13 and I was one of “the cool kids.” I hung out with this big group – both boys and girls – and we were the types that owned that school bus, we all dated each other, the girls were tough and the boys were cute. (Gimme a break, it was junior high.)

But there was this one girl that didn’t hang out with us. She lived in our neighborhood, she rode our bus, but she didn’t pay one bit of attention to us. She was beautiful…and I was jealous.

It wasn’t her beauty that intrigued me though. It was this…aura…that she had. Now the reason this all came back to me this morning is because I remember that anytime she was around – especially when I was a few yards behind her walking to the bus stop – this scent trailed her. It was some kind of fruity, floral shampoo or something and it just added to that aura. It smelled like happiness.

Her dad was military which is why she went to school with us, but her mom was Spanish. And she called her Miel which is Spanish for honey. I remember seeing her around the neighborhood with her mom and I envisioned them doing the fun things Moms and daughters do – shopping, getting manicures, talking about her friends and boys.

This was around the same time that I was living with some of the greatest pain I’ve ever felt in my own life. I wanted to be anyone but me. I wanted to be this girl called Honey that smelled like flowers and didn’t seem to care about being cool or popular.

To this very day, I find myself wishing I had that same sense of confidence and feeling of being loved.

Filed under This is My Therapy

Happy birthday to That Crazy Mom

By April on 5th February, 2009 2 Comments

No, its not my birthday.* Just the one year anniversary of That Crazy Mom.

I’ve blogged off and on for about 5 or 6 years but it was always through places like MySpace, LiveJournal and Blogger. One year ago, I bought this domain name, started out just redirecting my Blogger account to it and just completely moved to self-hosted WordPress shortly after.

So happy birthday to ThatCrazyMom.com.

* Feel free to send presents anyway.

Filed under Blogging

We need to talk

By April on 4th February, 2009 18 Comments

I have something I want to share with you. Its a very personal video blog post about a very important subject: childhood sexual abuse.

Sexual abuse is not something I talk about a lot but I do talk about it openly when the subject arises. Thanks to the 12 for 12k Challenge, I have a reason to talk about it and a way that you can help.

Did you know that in the U.S. childhood sexual abuse affects 1 in 3 girls and 1 in 6 boys by the time they’re 18? Did you know that the effects of childhood sexual abuse include mental illness, teen pregnancy, drug abuse, suicide, homelessness, and crime? Did you know that we’re spending billions of dollars to treat these effects?

There’s an organization called “Stop Child Sexual Abuse” that has launched a campaign called “Stop the Silence” which is aimed at preventing sexual abuse and providing treatment for survivors. Here’s how they describe their mission:

The Mission of Stop the Silence is to expose and stop CSA and help survivors heal worldwide. Our overarching Goals are to:

1) to promote healing of victims and survivors; and

2) to celebrate the lives of those healed.

Through our work, we aim to address the relationships between CSA and the broader issues of overall family and community violence, and violence within and between communities. Our focus underlines the importance of a shift in focus on positive development within our social complexes (e.g., the relationships between men, women, adults and children, cultural groups) to support peaceful – and to hinder violence-prone – relationships.

So what can you do? Watch this video. Then visit the 12 for 12k Challenge website and do your part.

UPDATE: I’ve added the ChipIn widget from the 12for12k.org site so that a) you can just go straight to the donation page after you’re finished reading/watching this post and b) so anyone who reads this post can see how much has been donated so far. There’s a “copy” button on the widget if you’d like to do the same.
After you’ve done that, I want you to email me at thatcrazymom@gmail.com, attach a copy of your receipt showing your donation, and I’ll provide you with a free custom Twitter background. I wish I could afford to match your donations but I hope you don’t mind settling for a freebie and my undying appreciation.

Thanks for listening. Now here’s the video…oh, wait, one more thing… I want to apologize for the wobbly video. I was sitting on my bed and Princess kept coming in then climbing up and down, up and down…. And I apologize for looking like a total dork too. I’m not one of those women that can cry and still look cute.

Filed under Blogging, Stuff I Like, This is My Therapy

Enough is enough

By April on 3rd February, 2009 1 Comment

I swear, I have had the worst luck with clients or potential clients lately and I’m seriously about to just scrap it all and start fresh – new business, new target market, new everything.

First there was the client who hired me to convert an HTML site to a WP site plus 10 hours worth of VA work. I got the site done right away and heard nothing from them for like a month. Now usually I don’t do rollover hours. The hours are to be used before the end of the month. But I let it go and carried them over to January. Then in January, those 10 hours that I’d intended to spend on some administrative stuff – sales pages, newsletter, etc. – were spent on constant revisions. The site was DONE. New graphics, theme fully customized, the whole bit. Then came the “Oh I think I want this other theme instead.” Ok, fine. I redid the whole thing with a different theme. Done. “Oh, I think I want a different color scheme.” ARRGGH!!! Redid all of the CSS and the .php files and waited for the rest of the info to be used in the pages. Two header redesigns later, I still don’t have the text I need. Plus I’m having to go in and fix things that they tried to do on their own – turn pages into posts, move categories to subcategories. I wait a week for a response which I finally get on a Friday afternoon. By Tuesday, I’m getting “Where are you?? Is the site done??” emails. Two working days later. Two. Actually, more like one and a half since it was Tuesday morning. Needless to say, there were no VA hours left over to get to the stuff I had originally planned because it was all spent on the bazillion revisions.

Then there are the ones who want an entire WP site done twice as fast for half the price. First its the “I can’t afford it” stuff. I tried to make it easier by splitting it up into two payments, sent out an invoice for the first half. Waited and waited on payment. Nada. They wanted a list of what was being done for this (already reduced) price. Sent it. Then comes the haggling. How much if we don’t do this part? How much for just this that and the other? I never should’ve caved in to begin with. It just opens a door that never gets shut unless you slam it. Hard.

Now from someone else, I’ve got an unpaid invoice that’s never going to get paid because they’re claiming they never got the email in which I sent the first draft so they hired someone else. Now how am I supposed to prove I sent it and is it even really worth it? No matter what I do, they’re going to refuse to pay. Oh and if I want proof that they never got it, I can check out their site to see that they’re using a different one. So I did. And guess what? The tag line on the one they’re using is the EXACT same one I came up with on the draft of the graphic I sent that they “never” received. Coincidence? Doubtful.

Lessons learned. From now on, I am standing firm on my prices and my policies including a deposit before work is even started. Proposals, expenses, timelines will all be laid out in the beginning and any deviations from that will either cause other work to get pushed to the bottom of the priority list or it all gets done and the extra hours are billed.

I can’t do business like this. I can’t put in 20 hours and only get paid for 10 of them. I can’t do $500 worth of work for $200. And I can’t put time into a project that I’m not going to get paid for.

Now I’m sure I’ll be bashed and gossiped about for talking publicly about this because I’m supposed to be worried about my image. But ya know what? If it sends the message that I do not appreciate or deserve to be taken advantage of , good. I know I’m not the only who has had these problems and I have no problem being the one to speak up and say you can’t treat people like this. Hopefully my future clients will appreciate that about me. Those that have a problem with it will certainly be able to find someone else to hire.

If you want quality work and you want me to do what you hired me to do, let’s talk. If you want to hire someone who is willing to negotiate their prices and do some of the work for free…well, I wish you luck. Please, please, please respect the people that provide the services your business needs. We have busy schedules and bills to pay too.

Aaaahhhhhhhh!!! I needed to get that out or else I would’ve lost what’s left of my mind.

Filed under J-O-B, Ranting, This is My Therapy, WTF?