Well hi there! Things have been crazy the past few weeks. If you’ve hung around here for long you know that I work from home, at a variety of different jobs. For a couple of years, I have done a lot of writing work, but that has not been very reliable lately. Independent contractors working from home are always having to make decisions about what they will do. Will this job last longer than that one? Is it possible to make good money doing this? Companies want good people. so they sometimes exaggerate the details about a job. Companies lose contracts, need fewer people suddenly or the hours available can change drastically from one week to the next – and maybe never go back to the ones that fit into your life. You never know what is coming.
One of the main types of work at home jobs out there are in customer service. A lot of major companies use work at home virtual call center peeps. You think you are calling a place where there are ranks of people, sitting in little cubicles, waiting to take your call about your cell phone service, your appliance repair appointment or your credit card. And maybe you are. Or you may be calling someone sitting at home in their jammies. Like me, for instance. Anyway – I finally decided it was time to go back to something a little more reliable and took a job with a company I worked for a few years ago – back to customer service. I’ve been in training classes for the last 7 days and have 3 more to go. This kind of training does not play to my strengths at all, and while I understand the need to train everyone the same, I get to end of the day wanting to nuke the whole internet and everyone on it. [3 more days 3 more days 3 more days] Grouchy.
But, before that hellish 6 hours rolls around, I slurp down a quick cup of coffee and go out to work in the garden. It makes up for a lot of aggravation later on, to hang out with these little babies, and imagine what they will look like when their promise is realized in a few more days. 
Which is prettier? The buds, or the full blown flowers? A matter of taste, and maybe of mood or attitude.
Sweet sweet sweet
Fortunately, unlike me with my job dilemma, you don’t have to choose. Love the buds now, the blooms later. And if you have a spare moment, you could send up a little prayer for my sanity, tattered and abused though it may be. It’s the only sanity I’ve got, and I’m hoping to have at least a few shreds left on Friday.
Thank you for calling – how can I help you today :)
I fell ya Donalyn…freelance graphic designer over here. Totally inconsistent. Totally unreliable. And all I really want to do is garden, cook, and eat. Totally maddening.
I’ll send up my prayers for yours if you do for me;) Hold on!
I know you can make it three more days! I have faith in you. Besides – with such a wonderful garden to retreat to – you can be refreshed so that you can face the long days!
Yup Amy – gets old to never know if you are going to be working. Not that CSR work is totally reliable either ;)
You got it back MPM
Thanks Trisha – we are in the home stretch now…
Sometimes I want to quit my day job and then I begin dreaming of doing freelance work. Then I wake up and smell the coffee.
Hope after the training bit, the job is everything you need for now.
Hi Dlyn You are doing great!!! Thank you so much for the link to Need to
Breathe and their wonderful music. Just put on your Lay It Down tape/link and listen (in your spare time) LOL Have a great day you’re almost there!!! PS Love the pics Have tomatos in a container and squash blossoms and lots of Petunias Love em all!!! Blessings Mary
Well, it is good to see you back, I wondered where you had gone for so long!! Love your little buds, and now I know you have to come back and post what the flowers will look like!! Right??
Thanks Mary – so glad you enjoyed NEEDTOBREATHE. Definitely a mood lifter.
Hi Lorna – thanks for missing me. I’ve been missing myself! And I will definitely post bloom photos too.
I sometimes find myself wishing, when I stumble across a grumpy Guss or sad stranger, that I could just give them a garden. You clearly know what I mean. It always works for me to stroll around in my own, willing the flowers, vegetables, and fruits on; enjoying their current beauty and future promise; watching white ibises help me to aerate the soil and keep the caterpillars in line; and so on. And pulling weeds — better than pulling one’s hair — is such good therapy when life gets frustrating. Here’s wishing you fewer worries on the working side of your life and more time for what inspires you.
Thanks Barbara – through the training and now on to working which sucks way less. I have a beautiful shady spot I can see from my office and that always makes the day go better :)
Hi Donalyn.
As someone who works in customer service (albeit in the legal industry; it just takes a different form), I really feel your pain. You have my sympathies.
Hope everything works out in your neck of the woods.
Stash
thanks for reminding me that you do have a shred of sanity … good to know! … and thanks for the beautiful pictures that take me away from the dullness in here!
CM, I think my final bits of sanity melted today…