What I've been doing for money lately

I've been taking a bit of a break from waitressing lately, which has been made possible by a company called Kotive. They have an app for creating something called "Taskflows", which help people to automate tasks in their companies, communities, or day-to-day lives.

What I've been doing for them (and being paid for, of course!) is creating taskflow templates for people to use and adjust to suit their own needs. After that, I write up a post about the taskflow to show to potential new clients all over the world. So far one of the taskflows I've created is for automating the procurement process in a small company. There are more to come - I'll add more links in here as soon as they've been published on Kotive's blog.

Something else I've been doing for them is starring in webinar-style videos that explain how to use their app.

You can check it out on Kotive's blog, along with a written-out explanation that goes hand-in-hand with the video, or you can just watch it here on my blog.

Anyway, that's all for now, folks! I really just wanted to share this video, so I had to write up a whole blog post to justify it. :P

Oh, and apparently my foetus is now the size of a playing die.

Bye now!

Everything is Breaking!

Three things are refusing to act as they should, at the moment. All of them make me sad. And all of them will cost / are costing me money.

Broken Thing #1: Smashwords 

Carrie the Limping Lion was meant to be released on Monday, and while you can now buy the ebook directly from Smashwords, Kobo has cancelled all of the pre-orders (NOOO!), and neither Kobo nor Barnes and Noble are selling it. Kobo still lists it as a pre-order; and I've just checked on B&N, and they've completely removed the listing, now. Aaaaaah! Time to look at a different distributor, methinks. (UPDATE: You can now buy 'Carrie the Limping Lion' through my blog, thanks to Payhip!) 

Broken Thing #2: My Piano :(

When I started playing a little while ago, Francois pointed out that the sound was wavering. It improved when we plugged an external amp in (or used headphones), so we assumed it was a finicky connection to the built-in speakers, and we set it up permanently with Francois' small amp.

But yesterday, while practising, it started wavering BADLY. And I could hear it through the headphones, too. And it isn't a gentle waver. It's very, very distracting. Which means getting somebody to try to fix it for me. Which costs money.

So much of sad and tears and NOOOOOOO! :(

I'd MUCH rather buy a new keyboard, with USB out, and new speakers that sound lovely on their own, and optional portability... Like this Yamaha (so pretty!!), or this one. But as you can see if you follow those links, they come with a bit of a price tag. Just thinking about it makes my chest hurt.

Broken Thing #3: The Blender 

I've been seeing this one coming. It's very, very hot today. Again. Candle-melting hot. So I decided to make ice-cold smoothies for breakfast. Now, as you might be able to imagine, the frozen bananas that I use to make the smoothies so cold are kind of hard... And today, my little hand-held blender just couldn't take it any more, and promptly melted.

Insert optional profanities here.

It's so disgustingly warm today, that I was more disappointed about the smoothies not being made properly, than I was about the broken blender! This is something that needs urgent replacement, because I won't be able to survive summer without those smoothies. I'll invest in a tougher machine this time.

Well, many visits to our cool shower are in order until we go shopping. At least that isn't broken! (I hope I didn't just jinx it.)

Waitressing is Boring

There's nothing quite like waitressing to remind me of how much I dislike waitressing. This is actually something that is very easy for me to forget.

Me at work! Very happy, because
I was serving my Grammy. :)

Short term, I enjoy being a waitress. I like people, I like making people happy. I learn new things about interacting with people every day, and I often do my job so well that I can change the course of somebody's day, simply by making their dining experience entertaining. This is great! But like I said... I enjoy it in the short term. Doing it for almost a year gets incredibly boring. 

Unfortunately (and fortunately), waitressing at Pomodoro, I make a fair amount of money. Working four shifts a week, I earn enough to pay the rent, my car insurance and my retirement fund at the end of every month. I can afford a few big shopping trips for groceries, petrol to pump into my car, and enough gas and electricity to meet all of our needs. There's even extra money every month for coffee at the Hoekwil Cafe, breakfast at Skotteljons a few times, and take-away pizza once or twice a month. Living expenses are not something that I need to worry about, because I know that I'll earn more than enough. 

Why is this unfortunate? Because all of this earning money results in stagnation. Every office job that gets advertised pays less and expects more. I don't want to work every day of the week! I like only working four days, and never having to take my work home with me. So, instead of making a plan to earn money by doing something more rewarding, instead of leaving my soul-crushingly boring job, I just keep on doing the same thing, week after week.

I'm writing this now, because I've finally made a decision to do something about it, and to make a change. That change involves writing every day to keep in practice - something that this blog helps with very much. It involves working on my children's poems faithfully, so that I can publish them soon and start selling my creative work. And it involves finding writing work, which may not be as fulfilling as bringing my own ideas to life, but will still feel much better than waitressing. 

So to tie up this post, I'll end with my goal for the end of this year: to be working two shifts a week, and earning the rest of my money through book sales and freelance writing.