Winter Shed: Week Four

Another week has passed, so time again for a Winter Shed post! The full back story of this blog hop hosted by Kathy at Bereaved and Blessed can be found here.

It was a pretty tiring week as our eldest son (now 3.5 years old) had a few very restless nights, including nightmares, bed wetting (although more PJ wetting, the bed was still OK), and hysterical crying. Apart from having a sore throat and a stuffed nose, there was nothing wrong with him, so I'm not sure what he was dealing with, but it seems to have passed, as the last two nights have been much better. Of course to keep mommy on her toes the youngest (1 year) decided to wake up screaming a few times last night - also major stuffed nose and I suspect an imminent appearance of tooth #8 to make his life (and mine) miserable. Apart from that it I was in preparation mode for the big work project to start - getting organized and cleaning the apartment.

Now to report on how I did during week four:

1. Read more novels.

I finally finished the French novel - I think from start to finish it took me more than a year, oops! - and I immediately started another one which I finished the next day (okay, it was only 133 pages, so not such a big deal). After a one-day break I picked up a thick Dutch novel that my husband gave me last year which should keep me busy reading for a while.

2. Follow the news more.

Well... I still haven't found a way to make this happen. Listening to the radio during breakfast would probably be the best solution as the evening news on TV is smack in the middle of trying to get the kids to bed and reading the New Yorker again still hasn't happened either, as for the moment I prefer to spend the rare spare time reading novels than getting depressed by extended reports on world events, even if they are very well written...

3. Pick up regular blogging again and start a series/hop on Cultural Differences.

Still blogging - two blog hop posts this week, Perfect Moment Monday and this one. I'm happy to say I also commented on almost all the other PMM participants posts. Ideas for the Cultural Differences series are brewing in my head and I would love to get it started by next week, but I also want to announce it on LFCA, which means I need to submit it this weekend at the latest and I'm not sure I will have a first post all thought out by then. I'm also not too sure about the frequency. I want to make it a regular feature, but I think if I do it once a week I will soon run out of topics. So a monthly series? Or should I just hope it attracts enough readers and they will suggest new topics if I ask for it? Most of the topics I have in my head right now are parenting related, as I'm obviously in the midst of that myself and it is also by reading other blogs that I figure out some things are done very differently from one country to another, but it might be too much of a turn-off for those reading LFCA and still battling infertility... Anyway, those are some of the reasons why I'm procrastinating with this project. Any comments and/or suggestions are welcome! 

4. Get my professional website up and running.

I don't think I will give this any time and energy before the project under #5 is finished sometime in mid-March.

5. Find more clients / pursue more paid projects.

All focus here is still on the big project I wrote about last week. They asked me for a price quote which I gave last Friday - I think it's more of a formality and it's unlikely they will come back to me saying no, but I did increase my price since last year and I haven't heard from them in a week, which does make me a little bit nervous... However the project manager said they probably wouldn't have the texts (it's a translation job) before the middle or end of this week, so we should still be good, but I did send an email this morning to ask where things stand (and also to let them know we can talk about the price, if need be), just to be sure.

Update: I got a mail back. They want me to stick to my old price but have brought the deadline forward to February 18 (!) and I will not get the texts before the middle of next week.... I've no idea how I'm going to do this. I'll take the weekend to think about it and will talk to them on Monday.

The school granted me an extra day a week at the school restaurant for my son, so that is great! Things are still a bit uncertain regarding the upcoming school holidays though, as one center that offers day camp was already completely booked. I have a registration appointment on February 11 with another one, but they couldn't say anything yet about availabilities - only that they have 16 spots. So we'll see.

6. Start playing the cello again.

This has been put off until at least after the above-mentioned project is over. If I happen to open the case and tune the instrument before, that's a plus!