Andrea, those are good muses. 🙂 I think also the new moon arriving could open things up. Plus there's that mental block we've overcome – the notion that the calendar had to change in order for us to shed the economic stigmas that held us back last year.

Best wishes

The update: No reply, so I did the write-around and the editor told me to invoice them for a few hundred dollars more than I'd expected. So perhaps the headache was worth it….

What has really irked me this week is the utter incompetence of this one woman. She's a manager of someone I needed just one or two quick quotes from. Over two months ago, she told my editor she would be able to arrange it. I initially contacted her November 7 with my official request. A week later she called, asked me to e-mail her the two brief questions so she could get right on it. I did that immediately. No reply, but I waited until Thanksgiving had passed to check back. No replies to my calls or e-mail. I kept trying through December, reminding her I needed the information by mid-December. (My piece wasn't due until the end of the year, but I was going to be gone after the 23rd.) Still nothing. My editor said to try again after the first of the year.

I called all of her numbers and e-mailed her on Monday. No reply. My editor contacted the person who had said she was the only way to get the quotes we need. He said this manager had been on an extended vacation. Then why didn't her voice mail or e-mail say that, or offer an emergency contact? Monday night she finally replied by e-mail, saying she'd been on vacation and would have the answers for my on Tuesday. Well, honey, now it's Friday. No answers. No replies to my follow up messages.

Sure, I can write around this guy's blatant absence. Had she told me she couldn't get his one or ten sentence quotes to begin with, I would have had this job finished, sent in, and invoiced by December 22. And the money would already be in the bank. Yet here I sit, waiting to see if she sends anything in today so we won't have to use the write around. And THEN I can send it in and invoice it and be paid a month later than I should have been paid.

I will NEVER use any of her clients as sources again.

Journaling Woman, welcome! Glad to have you. Ouch – that's some cold! Yes, as I've said before, I don't button the coat until it goes down to 20. I bet you're ready to see spring! Love MO – was there not long ago.

Michelle, I think you've coined a new phrase. 🙂 I like it!

But so far, the year has been good. I've not keep my promise to myself that I would write every day and that stinks. I *have* however begun the process of purging things I don't want to do anymore and that's very liberating. I would love to be done with one particular task in about a week but I don't know if that's going to happen because I have to depend on someone else to get it done and that's frustrating. I'm a get-it-done-now kind of person and I want it done NOW.

So. I wait. And it sucks.

And I'm trying to make myself drink more water and less coffe. Ha. Right. Like that's going to happen.

PS We in MO are at about 10 degrees below and hope that Joseph's information is correct. I need a good clearing out.