Nate and I discussed it, and it wouldn't be a good financial decision for him to get a job, because I would lose my grants for school if he were working.
We had a lot of fun at the convention. I sipped wine throughout the day and that helped with the anxiety I normally feel with that kind of situation. The first day he only made $1 and he was getting very discouraged. I had suggested we come up with some kind of gimmick, since his suggestion for "make your own price" wasn't working. I told him that when people say "Make an offer," I usually don't, because I don't like offending people by low-balling. I told him he should have them roll the dice for the price (like this play house in Chicago does). So the next day by 11 am he hasn't had any sales. He was getting very upset. Then he went and bought the dice. After that, the next two days he had over 50 sales. He made an average of $3.60 per sell, which is fine, considering each print actually cost 33 cents each. He paid for his table, at least.
I feel bad, though. He doesn't care about prints. He made them to make money. His true passion is his comics, but unfortunately it's not a great pull at conventions. So he's pretty much only selling prints, and we are only making back the table fee. He said that he's probably not going to big conventions unless the table is cheap or free, from now on.
We have another convention in a couple weeks. At least this is just a 1 day. I'm thinking that driving 4 hours, being in a convention 8 hours and driving back 4 hours isn't doable. So we are going to have to stay the night. I attempted to get an AirBnB room because it sounds fun. But we were rejected because these people don't book out that far in advance for short-term stays. Turns out it's not any cheaper to do that than to get a hotel room through express deals. But I'd rather support real people, so we'll see if we actually do that.
I haven't been able to see Sam that much. He's been pretty busy with his life and was sick and didn't want me bringing the kid over. I was going to go see his play the other night, but Nate had the car so he could go play games. At first I asked Sam to get me. I suggested he and I go have a drink first, and he agreed. But later he told me that he had promised to watch the play directly before his. So he was unable to get me unless I was willing to go to the other play, which I was not.
That was fine. I was able to do a lot of deep cleaning. I leave the bulk of the housework to Nate because he's a stay-at-home dad, and I pay my teen to clean, but both do a half-assed job. I was beginning to feel very overwhelmed and shitty about the state of our house.
We recycle. We have been keeping it in bins in the kitchen. It's not being dropped off frequently enough, and because of that, it's cluttering up the kitchen. I decided to order recycling service for peace of mind and convenience. My kitchen looks so good. I was also able to throw out some stuff that we don't need or use. The next couple of months I will be purging a lot of stuff.
In my adult life I have never lived anywhere more than 2 years. I'm use to purging when I move and going in with a fresh start. I'm starting to feel really antsy here. A good deep cleaning and purging of the whole house in order.
I had to postpone school until spring semester because these study meds I am on are killing my drive. I have lost my drive. I take them and I turn into a zombie who can barely move. I'm not sleeping well and I veg out all day. I can't think straight. It's making me scatterbrained at work. I decided that there is no way I can take school on my plate right now, when I feel like my home is so out of order.
I'm getting off these meds in another 6 weeks. At that time I will have my energy back and be able to get things in order and actually be able to bike ride like I had planned on doing. Part of the study is you have to agree not to do strenuous activities. I don't think you can even if you wanted to. Just knowing that I will have a few more months to get my shit in order has lifted this huge weight off my chest. I'm an overachiever and I didn't want to do it, but I had to admit when I couldn't take on more.
I told Sam that this October I will back off and only stay the night with him 1 night a week. They are opening up a new place that is way bigger. They are building a room just for him. I doubt they would be happy with him only working there 3 days a week if he's a feature spook. He thanked me for getting the additional time.
This Wed Mary, Nate, and I are driving to KC to pick up Jerry at the airport. I made plans with my friend Craig who we always see when we go up to go to karaoke. I'm hoping our host can come with too.
This week is going to be crazy busy. I'm getting some overtime at work this week and that's good, because I got caught driving 90 in a 65. But they put 84 on the ticket because the cop said that I have a perfect record. I wasn't intentionally speeding. My cruise control was out and we weren't paying attention. Who knew a minivan could go that fast? lol