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Showing posts from September, 2014

The no-work weekend

Since about late June -- except for the two weeks we were on vacation -- I've been freelancing like crazy. The one company I work for has sent me a steady yet impressive amount of work over the last three months. This is the most proficient work period I've had since going part-time at the newspaper several years ago. And this was my goal to, especially after quitting the newspaper in March. Oh, I am still writing for my old employer too, just adding to the freelancing madness. Amid this load of work, I haven't had much time when I wasn't thinking about what I needed to get done next. I get a little free time, I more often than not will pull out the laptop and work. I pulled back somewhat on vacation -- managing about five or six work-free days -- but was slammed when we returned to Utah. In the eight or so weeks since vacation, I've been a machine ...  and have worked in some way, shape or form every day. After knocking out 17 ghostwritten blog posts and two ne

Summer 2014, days 86-103: The conclusion of summer

At the end of every summer, I'm always a little sad. In my youth, the end signaled the beginning of school again. After college, when I was working as a sports journalist, the end meant the beginning of football season, which was always an exciting transition but also a return to a crazy busy seven months of the newspaper business (summer is always the mellowest time of year for sports desks). After I had kids and they started school, the end of summer meant a slowing down of any adventures and vacations and the return to a routine, with the inevitable cooling and short days just around the corner. I go through these cycles always looking forward to the next summer, inexorably setting myself up for everything going too quickly. I have a fifth- and a third-grader now, and I'm still trying to understand how that happened. Something was different this year throughout August. Not resignation that summer was ending and went by in a heartbeat. Not melancholy that my favorite seas