That is a saying that is used a lot in my recovery program and I’m sure in other places as well.  But it came to me in early sobriety and I used it all the time to get through the day without drinking or, in my case, without simply totally freaking out.  Kept things to a dull roar and my Mercury in Leo, that’s no small feat. Rooowrrrrrrrr.

So I’ve been trying to use that mantra again. It’s been a long time since I had to use it.  Not to get through the day without drinking, not an option and it didn’t occurr to me, but certainly to keep from freaking out.  The key to manifesting what you want in this life is to keep your intent focussed there and to remain in gratitude.  And because of that lost contract I’ve been worried about money and have lived off the savings. And it’s gone.  And I was this close this morning to having to ask someone for a loan. Which I so very much did NOT want to do.  I wanted to trust that this would all work out.  That the new proposal would be accepted, that more work would come in, that the right part time gig would show itself.

And this morning the tables turned.  Thank God.  Because I’ve been tossing and turning since 5:30am trying to figure out how to ask.  And after my email was open 15 minutes I received two emails accepting my proposal for a new project.  It’s a big proposal, double what I usually do.  50% due up on signing which should happen this week.  Oh, Thank you Great Goddess, Source of All.  I can breath now…

And pay the phone bill.  Man.

Meeting two more potential clients this morning, feast or famine.

While I don’t currently have a large paying client, I do have lots of work to do. Work on my portfolio. Getting my chops down with the new CS3 software, photoshop, illustrator, dreamweaver, flash.  My brain is fried.  I’ve decided to give myself the afternoon off.  Love this part of being my own boss.  I tend to work on weekends because I like what I do so…

Playing with new photoshop and illustrator brushes.  Ain’t it grand when work is play?

wonderful day.

I had an interview this morning that I wasn’t looking forward to. I hadn’t spent too much time wondering why I wasn’t excited about it. But it went really well. It’s a great company, agent actually. The woman I met with was fun and the whole office had a definite funky coolness about it that I liked. Just like the company/agent I met with last week. But why have I felt so, hmmmm, out of it. I do know why and after this great meeting I was able to look at it.

I? Have been feeling not good enough. Not smart enough. Not hip enough. Not artistically talented enough. Not skilled enough to get a choice job with hip, smart, skilled, and creative people. Shades of drinking days, adolescence, yuk.

It’s been difficult to decide what to wear. I was raised in the professional world of law and banking. You wore certain types of clothing. As web designer I have found that certain amount of casualness, even sloppiness or freak, is accepted. But how to dress for the interviews? I just didn’t know. Last week I wore black linen pants, a black t-shirt, a lime green silk sweater jacket, hose, and sandals. And felt totally out of place in the bright golden orange big fish office. Fish every where, in tanks, posters, art work. Tattoos, capri pants, jean jackets.

I knew I had to find something a bit more casual and yet clean and professional. So cords and a black sweater, same sandal clogs but no hose. Big black leather bag. I think I nailed it. And for the first time ever I felt comfortable, physically comfortable on a job interview.

Oh, and did I tell you all that I cut my hair again? Tis very short. Was still obsessed with getting rid of the hair from the last two years, too much grief in it. As well as still didn’t like my first new haircut. It felt like a gray football helmet, conservative. Like a soccer mom hairstyle. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. It just ain’t anywhere close to me. The girl with neon pink hair in 1980. I hated it and no matter how much my friends told me that it made me look younger and it was cool, I just knew it wasn’t what I was going for. I got almost all of it cut off. An inch long on the neck and perhaps 3 on top I can do all kinds of groovy things. It might even be a little too long on top. But I feel much better.

So, today? Was a completely different meeting. The first thing she said was that I have a great resume and a great portfolio. That what makes me very special and what ought to help me get work (depends on how much comes in for them too) is the fact that not only am I designer but I do back end code and it’s hard to find folks like me who love to do both (I do). And that more and more clients are hoping to get this.

But that wasn’t what I was seeing in the ads I’ve been running across. I’ve been seeing folks who want desingers who do major back end code applications like Perl and C+. I do all the basics like html and css and dhtml and javascript and am very familiar with php although I don’t write it myself. But I was getting uber depressed. It ain’t writing php and Perl or VB. Not only did it look like folks want programmers who can design (now there is a juxtaposition, how many of them are there really??) but the salaries I’ve been seeing are pathetic. One place wanted a brand new design, database, and php and were offering, wait for it,..

$12-18 per hour

Naturally I didn’t apply but I was getting worried that I was seriously behind the times in my skillz. And that I might starve.

To have the agent tell me that I am a hot commodity with a hot resume, including years of program and project management, just made my day. And to tell me that the salary I’m requesting is right on the nail head. I requested double my salary of my last job. Oh this is good news.

The weather is glorious too. The interview was in downtown Seattle and I’ve avoided downtown for years. No one was more stunned than I to discover after leaving the interview that I felt incredibly energized. Bouncing on the clouds. The city, when I was in banking, just bummed me out. But coming from this more recent, more edgy, more creative point of view, perhaps it’s just the place for me. My last job, most of the folks I worked with were statisticians and researchers. Not very juicy for the creativity I can tell you. They did not GROK me in any way. The techies sort of did but even they were a bid staid in their modern techi-ness.

I’m rethinking things a bit here. Being around others who are in my field and bouncing creative ideas and new technologies around might be just what I need…

Who knew?

The mantra of the week? Money comes easily and frequently. Has been upgraded to Money and satisfying work comes easily and frequently.

I hate that if it means I was terribly wrong. It’s not really someone else so much right as it was the week in Cancer:

There’s more help available to you right now than you realize. You may have to cure yourself of an illusion in order to connect with it, however. What’s the illusion? I suspect it’s a misguided belief that you never have enough help! Here’s another mini-shocker, Cancerian: You’ve been making a certain process more difficult than it has to be. If and when you cure yourself of an illusion, everything could very well snap into place and the process will unfold with relative ease. What’s the illusion? I suspect it’s your (unconscious?) belief that success is more valuable if it’s hard and complicated.

Gosh darn it, this hits the nail on the head.  And what has it been this past week? Hard.  Emotionally trying to maintain an even keel but it’s been a challenge.

I’ve been “getting work” from a woman in the publishing business.  She knows lots of authors and lots of other folks. And when they need a website she sends them my way. But not one has turned into anything.  I thought one had though.  She’d been talking this guy up for a couple months.  In July it was requested that I hurry and make a mock website for him to sell him on the reality that he needs a website.  End of July I was told he bought it and signed on.  (she didn’t actually say he signed IT and I should have asked) Mid August I was told that the site needed to go forth by this weekend, Sept. 13th.  No content, no images, no contact with client, no check, no nothing.  Nada.  And, because I trusted her to be an honest person, I spent some money I wouldn’t have spent if she hadn’t told me it was a done deal. And see, that is the stickler.  She didn’t say “The contract is signed,” she said it was good to go.  I assumed it meant the same thing.  Turns out it isn’t good to go so she still did lie but next time I’m asking more questions when money and contracts are involved. 

It took some doing but she finally admitted that he never signed the contract. That he still has questions about the entire package she’s trying to sell him.  There is no money.

She was calling me and freaking out and trying to make it someone else’s fault and trying to do damage control. I was so mad and she was so freaked out that I did not answer the phone but kept all our communications via email.  She’s gone from perhaps she and I need a contract about how WE do business to wanting to lecture me on how contracts work. !!  As if that were the problem.  Are you frikking nuts I ask? Well not really.  But all I want was her to be honest.  No contract will make her do that.  We have a meeting a week from tomorrow but I have no idea what she wants to discuss. Evidently she’s worried that she’s lost me as a web designer.  Hey, keep referring folks to me.  But never again will I work as a subcontractor to you.  Never.  Not under any circumstances.  You lied straight faced to my face once and twice in email and once on the phone.  Send anyone you like my way. But we?  Are done as far business partners go.

And I? Am scrambling to say the least.  Scrambling to make my damned car payment, worrying about the rent. Fer Krist’s sake!  Bits and pieces are coming in from elsewhere but darn it.  I’ve got a meeting with a prospective client, another one of her referalls, and he’s a handful.  He’s the only one who knows anything and won’t let you talk. Should be fun, I know the phone conversation with him yesterday was. I also interviewed yesterday with a local headhunter.  I’m checking the want ads every day and if something doesn’t break soon, I’m going to have to take a job I hate to calm myself until I recover from this shock.

I do have one client who I’ve been working with for years and thankfully he’s reliable as the sunrise.  And a dear sweet guy to boot.  I should have a nice check from him end of next week too.  It’s going to work out.  Things always do. There is one last ditch option that will bail me completely but I’m trying not to go there at the moment.  I want to concentrate on manifesting it in work hours first.

I find it hard to believe that I manifested this simply because my visualizations were so strong but perhaps they were not as strong as the one that said “What the hell are you doing?”  I can’t believe that.  I was bit foolish, I should have had check in hand before assuming she was telling me the truth. I’ve learned a serious lesson.  Oh yes I have.

So working hard on getting my booth ready for Concentric Circles.  Wish it didn’t have a green top but c’est la vie. Maybe next year I can give it a white one. It went up really easily and my Harvest Blessings Banner (you know, the wool applique one?) hangs very nicely from the poles.  I have the table cloth, cards made, new earring sets as you saw and lots of new pouches and things.  There won’t be much to add to the Etsy shop when I get home. Why? Because I’m going to sell a bundle of stuff.  So Mote It Be.  It tends to be a goodish event for merchants and any income from that would be welcome. 

Send good job and money juju if you got it, I could be using something to pan out right about now…

I knew that this morning I would have to get to work. I have three commissions in que. Designs for all three have been percolating in my head for some time now, some sooner than others. One has paid their down payment so that is the first one I do. I wake up this morning and figure that after dropping the car off at the body shop I need to get to busy. I’ve had three weeks off and it’s time.

I’ve been busy for a few hours now and have sent off drafts and emails to clients. I was sitting here and thought, yeah, I could go surf around looking for this and that, that will make me look busy. And then the thought hit me. Who do I have to look busy for? hahahahaha. Is that perfect or what? Might as well go take a nap, the boss knows exactly how much time I’ve spent on these projects. At least an hour last night as I lay in bed, photoshop layers and author quotes swimming in my head.

Laying in bed is when almost all of my design drafting occurs. I don’t know exactly what it is about that activity, or lack of, that does it but I get the best stuff done. Perhaps I do know. The body is at rest, there is no extra visual stimulation so things just start coming. It’s so nice to know that I don’t have to try and explain to an employer that my best time on the job is never actually AT the job but in bed.

Still looking for the perfect part time job, at least in my field. I’ve spent time visualizing what that job looks like. And it’s lovely.

Off to go read while I wait to hear back from a client…

Life? Is awesome.