The anxiety I’ve been struggling with since this past July is finally starting to take a back seat to life, which is an absolutely welcome occurrence. I attribute this partially to what I call wilderness therapy, which basically involves taking walks in the sunshine on a daily basis whenever possible. Lots of times, Sage and I will simply go to the soccer park and lie down on the big hill and watch the dogs cavorting and getting all wet in the stream. Other times, we’ll use any excuse–like needing a loaf of bread–as an excuse to walk around town.

Something about feeling the wind in your hair, seeing the bright blue of the sky…For me, those things dramatically reduce anxiety. I’m a homebody, but I hate being cooped up in the house, if that makes any sense. I’d like to take my outside therapy a little further and buy decent warm raincoats for Sage and me, since it has been raining way too much lately. I’ve been doing an exercise CD in the house, and while that helps burn off the adrenaline, it does nothing for the part of me that needs the sunshine. Perhaps a vitamin D supplement would help. Who knows? I’d still rather be outside, though.

Homeschooling is turning out to be more fun that I thought it would be. Once I mentally broke out of the mold that I needed to go by a strict schedule requiring wall clocks in every room, I started to relax and do things more naturally. Sage and I are planning on building something–we haven’t decided yet. At any rate, making the plans will require quite a wide range of math skills. So will building whatever it is. We’re trying to decide between a clubhouse (expensive), a greenhouse (still a bit pricey) and a dollhouse (more in my price range). I have this fantasy going that we both could become expert builders and specialize in building (and selling) dollhouses or storage buildings or something like that.

The thing that surprises me the most about our homeschool adventure is how fast Sage is picking up on Spanish. Not only is his pronunciation almost perfect, but he remembers all of the words, and can read Spanish just fine. He even understands the grammar, and got a 95 on his first test. He is doing much better than I ever did when I studied it!

Writing is really the only thing that is not coming as naturally. I am racking my brain for ways to get him more interested in it. The fact that I write literally thousands of words a day does help when it comes to motivating him to write a couple of paragraphs, though!

In addition to all of the freelance work I’ve been doing lately, I’ve been doing a few crafty things as well. I went on a yarn binge the last time I went to Hobby Lobby, and now have one crochet hat and one knitted hat in progress. I didn’t buy enough yarn for the crochet hat, so that is a thorn in my site. It looks really beautiful, but I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to get it finished! The knitted hat is going to take a while, since I am rusty at knitting and I’m using small needles (size 6). The knitted hat is for a friend of mine who is having a baby next month, so I’d better get seriously busy!

I’ve also been working on making my bizarre stuffed cats with the weird eyes and funky clothes. I have a pile on cat parts in my craft room that still need to be assembled and then dressed. I’ve also been reading some tutorials on how to make your own rubber stamps that sound interesting. A friend of mine does it, and hers turn out very well. They look a bit like old-fashioned woodcuts. It sounds like something that would be a good moneymaker at the Farmer’s Market or on Etsy. Can you tell I am really unfocused right now?

Right now, I’ve got three copywriting books in my Amazon shopping cart. When my husband asked this morning what I wanted for Christmas, I told him, “An Amazon gift card.” I think that learning copywriting would be one of the best things I could do for my freelance writing career. This is because my ultimate writing goal is to freelance for myself! I’ve got an eBook almost complete, and am working on the code for the site. The thing I lack is a good landing page. As a writer, I can’t bring myself to hire someone else to write phrases such as “click here to contact them” and “Buy your copy now before the offer ends.” I know that I can figure out how to do it!

Knowing a bit of HTML puts me a bit ahead of the game, although the ante has been raised. These days, landing pages have videos, charts and graphs and lots of bulleted copy. Still, if it converts well, I am more than willing to put up a video of myself talking about how to land freelance writing gigs on the internet, how to deal with anxiety attacks, or whatever it is I’m selling. (I’m not telling!)