Just when I bowed to update my blogs a little bit more often, something happened that did NOT allow me to keep my bow. So from now on, no more talks of updating my blogs more often.

But you’ll probably want to know what took me away from my blogs for two months so this post is just going to be about that. Why didn’t I blog?

Answer: My husband got sick. And while that is not the only reason, it is where all the other reasons rooted. Before my abrupt disappearance from the blogging world, I was really very motivated to work on my blogs—to redesign them, update them more often, accept more opps, etc. At that time, I felt like my blogging will dramatically incline. Unfortunately though, my husband got sick and I had to take care of him. For two months he was at home and the first few weeks were really horrible. It took him that long to recover because his sickness was not the kind that heals after a few days. It was nothing serious because he did not have to be admitted in the hospital but it was serious enough to turn our life around for a brief period of time. He was too weak to do anything. Fatigue, night sweats, chills, muscle pains, etc… His sickness was keeping us both wide-awake at night. I was, of course, expected to do everything—cook, clean, look after him, do the grocery, etc. And while I am not complaining… I tell you, it was difficult. I had a very ill husband and a 3-month-old baby to take care of. I was not sleeping well even though I felt overly exhausted at the end of each day. I was very stressed. Usually, I don’t cook everyday because hubby eats a big lunch at work so when he comes home, he’s not that hungry and would only request a salad or a small snack. But when he was home, I had to cook every single day and that means I also had to do the grocery more often.

I was really stressed.

I got sometime for myself..or rather, I was able to steal sometime for myself from no other than myself. Do you understand what I mean? Say, I still have 3 hours to sleep before my son wakes up… but because I want to sit for a while, relax a bit, and maybe read a blog I follow or check my FB, I stay up for an hour. I stole an hour away from my sleeping time.

It was really a stressful period for me.

I could have also stolen some time to blog BUT I didn’t. Why? Because.

There were times when I was assigned opps. Decent ones. The kind I’ll agree to do in a heartbeat. I accepted all of them BUT I was not able to do any of them because I can’t focus—hubby needs something, baby is awake, no more milk in the fridge, it’s almost time for lunch, etc. In short, there was always a reason why I was NOT able to sit and write. And when I finally do, the opps are expired.

So even tough I could write a non-opp blog entry, I didn’t because I sort of lost my enthusiasm to blog. This happened to me a few times only but enough for me to feel that I lost my blogging mojo. Yeah, that was it—I lost my blogging mojo. At some point, I just didn’t like to blog anymore. I still like blogs, infact.. during my stolen times, I read blogs but at some point, I just didn’t have the inclination to blog anymore.

***

Above post was written last night. I am publishing it today because I got interrupted. Anyway, today I learned from the tweet of my blogger friend, Sterndal, that google just updated its pageranks. WTF!?! I am so annoyed. Why does it have to happen when I don’t have any update for two months.

I am beat from doing a bunch of housework today but I promise to update this blog so here I am writing this quick post.

I just want to make a quick report of what I earned from freelancing online for the month of August and here it is:

my work at home earnings for august

I am glad that I was still able to get clients for my blog designing services even though I can only promise a 2-weeks turn around. I am glad that there are people who are still patient. For the month of September, I want to accept more clients. I already have one client on my queue but considering the turn around I have, I myself, would be surprise if I can get more.

I am really enjoying blog designing and it is such a shame that I don’t have the liberty to spend long hours doing it. And so far, all my clients have been nice, patient, easy-to-work with, and are really professional. This makes it more pleasant for me to work on their blog design projects.

I stayed up so late last night and that’s not because my baby was fussy. It was because I needed to finish a blog design. I should have finished it last Sunday but since we spent  five days at my in-laws, I was not really able to work on it. Also, the week before that, I was distracted—instead of designing my client’s blog, I redesigned one of my blogs.

I am so easily distracted these days. Like right now…I am supposed to be designing a business card for a client, but for some reason, I just spent so much of my free time on FB again (damn!).

I need self-discipline and I need it now.

Gosh. There are so many things I should do. Other than the design projects I have, I should work on my odesk tasks. I should update my DMP site. I should update my blogs. I should redesign my blogs. Etcetra. And I am only talking about my online activities, okay. I feel so stressed but actually, it’s just me. (It’s not you, Freelancing. It’s me. LOL.) If I could be a bit more responsible, I would not have such problems.

So, if I want to accept more blog design projects next  month, I should get my act together.

Another month has ended and it’s time to report my monthly online earnings again. Some might be shocked to learn that I am working despite the fact that I just gave birth six weeks ago. Well, I actually just started looking at work after a month of giving birth and though I accepted a couple of design jobs, I don’t work on them full time. Right now, my turn around for one bog design project is 14 days (instead of 3-5days). This allows me to have more time to relax. By the way, I only work if my baby is asleep; otherwise every thing’s on hold.

I accepted two blog design projects; one of which is done and the other is scheduled this August. I plan to accept two clients per month. I am not hoping for plenty of clients because I won’t be able to handle them right now. Two clients per month would be perfect.

Here’s my monthly online earnings for July:

work-at-home earnings for july

Obviously I didn’t work on my Odesk task last month but this month, I am sort of oblige to render some hours because one of my employers already started giving me some tasks.

I also did ONE paid post last month. I would have like to do more but that was the only opp I found that offers a pay which is not lower than 4$. There were a lot of opps but I refuse to accept less than 4$. It would just be a total waste of time if I do.

Before I asked for a maternity leave, I told my remaining employer at Odesk that I will be able to do a bit of work again starting July, but it’s almost August and I haven’t reported to him yet so when I got an email from him asking me about continuing work, I was not surprised. I knew that one of these days; he’ll contact me about whether I still want to continue working for him or not anymore. Truth is, I am not really that eager to continue working for him. He is a very kind and patient employer, and the tasks he gives me are very interesting, but the pay is very low. He gives me bonuses every now and then but they are not enough to compensate for the low pay.

I was technically doing jobs for him but it was more like learning stuff and getting a small amount from learning.  The tasks he gave me were really interesting and I had plenty of time so it was okay. But now, not anymore.

I have to prioritize what I do with the very limited time I have for my online activities. I have to choose those that give me better benefits—emotional and financial. Blogging will always come first because, though I am not really earning from my blogs, they serve as an emotional outlet. Blogging has oftentimes cured my boredom, my sadness, my annoyance, and so on so I really have no plans on giving up blogging.  Blog designing comes in second because it serves as an artistic outlet and although I can’t really make a living from it, I earn a pretty decent amount from it. Odesk will have to come in last.

So now that I am slowly coming out of my maternity leave, I am devoting my online time on my blogs and my blog designing services. If I would have plenty of time, I would update each of my blogs once a week, but since I am still just sort of squeezing in my online activities, updating a blog each week should suffice. I also accepted a couple of blog designing projects—one for July and another for August. I told my clients who, despite the fact that I was on maternity leave, contacted me for a spot on my queue, that I can’t promise a 3-5days turn around because I am still adjusting to the whole motherhood thing. I told them that I can only promise a 14days turnaround and if they are okay with that, I can put them in my queue. Two out of four clients said they are not in hurry so they’re the ones I am serving now.

If only I wouldn’t need to do the house chores, I would have time for all my online activities. Right now, my baby still sleeps a lot. I could use his sleeping time to work on my freelance jobs but unfortunately, there are house chores waiting for me. Then there’s also the fact that there are frequent visitors who want to see the new member of our family—this is the main thing that is stressing me right now.

Sigh. I can take care of my baby very well and I can babysit him willingly but as for the housework…I wish for a maid because I’d rather work on my online jobs than do the house chores.

So sorry for not updating this blog but as you might have already guessed, I gave birth and so, you know the rest. LOL.

But it’s a month since and I should start to pick things up with my blogging again. My recovery period is technically until 6 weeks after giving birth, but I feel fine now. I just wish I have more time for all of my online endeavor.

But before I forget, I would like to report my earnings last June. I didn’t work (except for a couple of hours in Odesk) but that does not mean, I didn’t earn a cent. This month’s earnings is nothing compared to my previous monthly earnings but since I vowed to report my monthly earnings from my online freelancing endeavors, here it is:

work-at-home earnings for june

May has ended and I should have posted my mothly work-at-home earnings two days ago but my routine has dramatically changed in the last two weeks.

As expected,  my work-at-home earnings this month decreased compared to the previous months’ earnings. I didn’t really worked in the last two weeks of May. I did some few neccessary tasks for one of my Odesk jobs but that’s it. I also stopped accepting blog design orders because I really don’t feel like working now.

Here is my month’s earnings:

work-at-home earnings for may

I won’t be working in the next few weeks. I will wait until the birth of my baby and until the time I am fully adjusted to having a baby

I haven’t been working a lot on Odesk lately and this is because I have been busy with something else. This is the reason why I am not really earning from my Odesk gigs. Last week, I earned 97.70$ but that is because one of my Odesk employers gave me a 45$ bonus for another job done.

Anyway, I am not sorry at all that I didn’t even reach a weekly Odesk earnings of 100$ because I just launched a project and I hope that I will benefit more from this project later on.

Design Me Pretty is launched!

So ladies and gentlemen, allow me to announce the launching of DesignMePretty.com. Like the name says, this website offers pretty blog designs services for a very cheap price. When I say cheap, it is really cheap. Since I am just breaking into the industry of web/blog design, I want the prices for my blog design services to be as competitive as possible. On top of that, I am also offering 50% off on all the blog design services if you place an order from now until the end of April.

Right now, Design Me Pretty’s Portfolio has only a few things to showcase and I really would like to build that up. And to build that up, I should start my blog designing services right away but I don’t think that clients will come pouring soon because I just launched it yesterday. I still have to work on how to get the word out.

So guys, if you are tired of using all those boring generic blog designs and would like to have a prettier blog design, hire me to do that for you. If you can’t afford my services or my special promo (50% off all blog design services), contact me anyway by leaving a comment on this post or by filling in the contact form at DesignMePretty.com. I am sure, we can arrange something that will be beneficial to both—you get a prettier blog makeover while I get some advertising space and noise. What do you say? Drop me comment so we can talk about making your blog prettier.

I chanced upon somebody else’s blog some time last week (and due to its controversy, I won’t link to it) and in that particular blog, the author wrote that she decided to stop broadcasting her online earnings because many people think that she’s a show off and that she can’t stand explaining to people, over and over again, how she’s earning her money. That prompted me to contemplate about what the people who read viennalopez.com think. Do they think I am a show off too?

Hmmm…I hope not.

First, because I am earning peanuts. Second, because I am struggling (and I always say so) to earn what I earn. Third, because other than being a small time freelancer at Odesk and a small time member of sites that have PTB schemes, there’s nothing else—those are the only places in the net for me to earn money from.

I am contented with 150$/week and a 200$/week earnings is enough to make me happy—I am shallow, I know. Of course I do have a target and that target may sound a bit overreaching to some but believe me, it is really possible to achieve 1000$/month from working-at-home. Some people earn way more. I try to reach that target and up to now, I am not yet successful but that does not mean I am discontented and that I look down on earning an amount that is less. Actually, I think that earning (whatever amount of) money by working at home is just great.

So going back to letting people know how much I earn… I do it NOT because I want to show off (that would be making myself a laughing stock to big time freelancers) but because I want to inspire or to give a little nudge to people who want to go to the same direction. I want to share what I experience while going through the path of freelancing, of working-at-home. I am not trying to wow people. I am just sharing my experiences and that include sharing how much I earn. That’s pretty much it.

And since we are in this topic and it’s Monday, here’s what I earned last week: 101.19$. I only worked on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday that’s why I didn’t earn more. And just in case you are curious, the reason why I didn’t work on the other days of the week is because I felt so lazy. :-p

It’s Sunday and I still have some things to work on, but I don’t think I have to finish them all before this week ends. I’ve worked fairly hard this week, and I think my employers can see that, and that is why they are not pushing me to finish everything in their given time frame. I also have the feeling that my employers are slowly appreciating the work I am doing for them, and here are the reasons why I feel that way:

My employer number 1 (editing job) did not just give me more important tasks a couple of week ago but he also gave me the rights to have the bylines for the articles I publish on their company blog. This may sound shallow again but it’s really a very nice feeling to see my name under the articles I published.

My employer number 2 (virtual assistant job) gave me a bonus! This job pays a very small amount of 3$/hr but I am doing it anyway because I am getting the most interesting and challenging tasks from this employer. Last time, I wrote about feeling cheated because I did a lot of hard work for a very meager pay. This is the particular job I was talking about that time. The bonus given to me is 50$. That’s probably nothing for some but for me, it meant a lot because it only goes to show that my employer appreciates my work. This particular employer also gave me the permission to interview and hire additional personnel for him. Cool. It means, he trusts me and that he’s got confidence in me. Also, lately, if there is something I have to do for him that I have no idea about, he pays me to learn it. He tells me that I can spend a particular number of hours to research and learn something, and I can log these hours in my Odesk tracker. I still think that the pay could be a bit higher for this job but I am willing to keep this job because I like the tasks and I like how my employer treats me.

My employer number 3 (article writing job) is a bit different. He gave me a set of writing tasks to do on the first two weeks but there’s nothing after that. I don’t know if I will ever get another set of tasks from him. The last time I checked, he hired additional writers who are changing much less and they are the ones receiving tasks now. Also, I have seen that the articles I wrote for him were finally published on his site, but they’re all under somebody else’s name. Ok, it was not a part of the agreement that I can have the byline, but I think that if he gives that to me, it would be a very good motivation. Anyway, this job is still active, if I don’t get any task this coming week, I might have to ask him to end the contract.

Anyway, the good outnumbers the bad so I am still happy. Slowly, I can see the positive side of freelancing at Odesk. I may still not earn a lot from it but at least, I am slowly enjoying being a freelancer at Odesk.