Have I mentioned that I really hate this? Because I enjoy working at home and being my own boss. I'm probably the happiest I've ever been post-college. But sometimes when you do what you love, the money doesn't follow quickly enough.

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Kristin (and others with tiaras) there's something called a Sunshine Cloth. I buy them at the local bead store. They're great for polishing jewelry. They have the advantage of not making a mess, although they leave a residue on your hands. And whatever you use, make sure it's something that's not going to leave shreds in the settings of your tiara!

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sometimes when you do what you love, the money doesn't follow quickly enough.

Um, yeah. Living that right now.

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OK, having established that no one at UW or the Hutch (cancer research center) wants a grant writer or events coordinator (part-time preferred) just now, I should probably stop staring dismally at the job listings on the Seattle Times classifieds site and remind myself that none of this is either immediate or definite.

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Susan, as long as Annabel's not running a fever, or otherwise feeling too miserable to be reasonable while you shop, I would take her out with a cold.

I hope you get your financial/childcare situation sorted, and find a good-for-you solution.

Heh. I'd need to way more than double it to be able to afford any kind of daycare that I'd have to go on a waiting list for. If I tripled it, I'd probably be in a position to hire a college student to come watch her 15 hours/week or so in the living room while I worked in the office.

Are there any young teens in your neighborhood or church who you could get for less? If/since you'd be in the house and there for actual emergencies, you really just need someone capable of changing a diaper, getting her a snack, and taking her outside to play or otherwise keeping her out of your hair. I used the 12 year old daughter of my cousin for that purpose, when Chris was an infant, Julia was 1.5, and Ben was 4 years old. I got a couple of uninterrupted hours, and was there in case of boo-boos, sickness, etc.

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I'm off! Wish me luck!

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LUCK!

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All the best, vw!

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Luck and job-ma vibes flowing towards vw~~~~~~~~~~

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Hec, the CD arrived!

Success! Did you like the artwork?

EM associates her post-partum depression with the breast pump. And we had the same problem with flattened nipples getting Emmett to breast feed.

Go, vw, go! Buckets of good job-ma.

Susan, there's always some turnover at daycares so it's not impossible to find one - especially with a few months notice. San Francisco had a central hotline for daycare recommendations. You should check to see if Seattle does as well. They probably have to be certified with city services. Craigs List is a good resources too, especially for sharing a nanny (which we did for aftercare when Emmett was in pre-school - though it was expensive).

Emmett's very first daycare was in a house near ours, with a woman who had just seven other 2 y.o.s. That worked out very well, and it's easy to check references. That's key. Talking to the other parents.

You really want to consider how the daycare dropoff is going to fit into your commute too. I preferred having it local so I'd drop Emmett off and hop on the train downtown. It was more work to take him downtown with me to my work daycare (his second), and worse still to take him to his pre-school which was not on the way to anything.

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