Work Stories and New Pursuits

The picture to the left is a painting I made for the kids at the Family Center, to remind them about the consequences of bullying. Obviously, I'm still teaching about how to deal with bullies, and a lot of my time is spent doing other things with the kids. The living stipend is a bit of a crunch, mostly because Jennifer and I are planning to fly down to Florida to visit her mom sometime soon, so I'm trying to earn a little extra cash. In addition to selling photography and submitting to publishers, I'm working as an "expediter" for ChaCha, one of those answer services where you can text any question and have it answered almost immediately. The pay is poor when you think of the hourly wage, but it's actually pretty fun! Sometimes I am giving advice to teenage girls about how to get over their ex-boyfriends, sometimes answering questions I also wanted to know, and of course the occasional weird sex inquiry. But each time I log on to ChaCha, I'm pretty much guaranteed a laugh, and I can completely set my own hours. I'd definitely recommend it for stay-at-home moms, students, and anyone else who has more time than money.

Most of my stories from work lately have been depressing, which is why I haven't posted, but I gotta say, dealing with kids who have no one to care for them makes me so much more appreciative for the kids who do have that. There have been a few times at a mall where I've wanted to go up to a parent and thank them for loving their child, because seeing an adult listening to and caring for a child makes my heart happy.

In my diminishing spare time, I've started a new ceramics class at the local community center, which is solely devoted to creating dishes for the Empty Bowls project I discussed in an earlier post. See, charity work can be nothing but fun!