Ooh Baby!

Our friends Melissa and Jamiel had a baby girl Friday. Her name is Madison Lynn, and she weighs 8 pounds, 7 ounces. We went to see her at the hospital Saturday, and she's terribly sweet!

Free(lance) at Last

When my friend Darin left “Print Solutions” magazine before the start of the new year, my main source for freelance writing dried up. I had written for him pretty steadily the past few years, which brought in a nice chunk of extra cash. Luckily (thanks to Darin once again) I just scored a sweet freelance gig with a consumer health website that’s launching in October. I’m writing 5 articles for them this month—one on relationships and four on pregnancy—as they stock up for launch, then there should be ongoing assignments (assuming they like the work I’m doing now). They also pay better than anyone else I’ve ever freelanced for.

So if you don’t hear from me much, know that I’m knee-deep in work for the next few weeks. I got these 5 assignments last Tuesday and they’re due on the 29th of August! That’s a tall order for someone who works full-time, but I have a good start. I’ve turned in a pretty complete draft of the relationship story already; I just need to get one more expert quote. And I turned in in-depth outlines for the pregnancy stories yesterday. The trickiest thing about freelancing and working full time is finding time to interview sources during the workday. I’m hoping to line up a couple of interviews in one afternoon and take a vacation day (I can’t work on freelance stuff on HOW’s dime, natch).

Although writing about design and printing isn’t a drag, those subjects don’t exactly make my heart sing. So it’s nice to be writing about women’s health topics, which appeal to me on a more personal level.

Happy Friday

I'm sitting here at work eating tomato bisque from Trader Joe's and sliced cucumbers and feeling pretty darn happy. It's sunny, there's a breeze blowing through the trees outside my window and the sky is a perfect shade of blue with fluffy white clouds. Bryn says on days like this her mom says it looks like the sky has been washed and hung out to dry. I like that thought. It's actually 85 degrees out, but from my vantage point it looks like a warm yet crisp September day when the humidity has left the air and summer is on the verge of segueing into fall. Thinking about days like that give me one of my favorite feelings. After running an incredibly productive but mind-taxing meeting this morning, I was wishing I could leave and spend the afternoon outside. But I think my office weather fantasy is probably even better than reality.