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Wakonda’s slippage on the laminate floors is a constant issue. So we tried the booties above and hilarity ensued. The booties are too much trouble. Imagine wrestling a 100 pound malamute into booties every single day. Not happening.
Now I’m trying paw wax. Malamute (100 pounds of which) is not allowing me to apply the paw wax without a wrestling match. We’ve moved onto scattered throw rugs. I’m eyeing some of these for the future. Right now it’s whatever I can find at Walmart that looks decent.
My office decor is complete for the moment. I went for “Zen”. I have paper lamps and a tinkling table fountain. Another attorney walked in and said “this looks like a spa” – perfect!
Today we can see the sky for the first time in days. We’ve been under a solid grey inversion layer. Everyone I talk to is wandering around depressed from the endless grey, grey, grey. The bright day should help us all recover from S.A.D.
I’m heading back to the office today. It’s been a long weekend of working. But it’s either sit around and stress about the work I have piled up, or simply go in and start working on it.
Okay, I’m tired. Really, really tired. Undereye concealer is mandatory.
The new office digs are awesome. I can walk to court. Court is across the street. This is good.
I can’t construct a paragraph longer than nine words. Again…tired!
Whining aside, this is a good tired. This is a “I’m really busy” sort of tired. Being a sole practitioner, “really busy” is good.
Which brings me to an important announcement – this week marks my year anniversary as a solo practitioner. Do I like being my own boss? The answer pretty much fluctuates, but when all is said and done, the pros outweigh the cons.
Some cons:
- Financial worries. I only get paid if I’m my own rainmaker. No pay check.
- Finding time to do the administrative end of practice, like making bills and paying bills. Important stuff.
- There’s nowhere to pass the buck – it starts and ends with moi.
Some pros:
- I get to decide which cases I take.
- Sometimes I can take the afternoon off, just because.
- If I want to take a couple days off, I don’t have to ask permission. I just find a way to schedule the time off around deadlines.
- I get to decide which cases I take. (Yes, I know I already said that, but it’s a biggie.)
- No office politics.
- No interoffice meetings.
- No Court appearance = Instant Casual Day.
I kept wanting to add a post, but I wanted to upload some photos, then I wanted to upload a new photo for a header. Then it became a hassle with all the pre-requirements I was putting on myself. I really am a head case. Upload the photos later, change the header later for Chrissakes!
The holidays were great, with our weather being the only exception. The recordbreaking, over 5′ of snow in a couple of weeks, caused a lot of problems with getting to work. Now, I don’t necessarily feel incomplete if I can’t work, however, deadlines march on whether I can get to work or not. It was a stressful couple of weeks. We’re in a “tropical” phase right now with no snow, but rain. Rain is fine. Of course, we have flood warnings, but I can live with that. I don’t live anywhere that will flood so the solution is simple – avoid places that will flood!
During the holiday stretch I decided to indulge myself in taking the guitar up again. I played when I was a kid and then abandoned it as other things became more important (cars, boys, being stupid). Then I took up piano in young adulthood and really liked it. However, I don’t own a piano and to have the type of electronic piano I want, I’d have to come up with a pretty hefty chunk of change.
So to get back in touch with the side of my brain devoted to less serious things, I decided to try out the guitar again. I made the fatal mistake (and I suspected it was a mistake when I did it) of buying a really cheap starter guitar. Well, that lasted about a week. I now have a lower-end, but awesome Martin DXM which is so much easier to play I find myself playing for hours non-stop and I have to literally force myself to put my toy down.
And finally, I’ve decided to move my physical office. I found a great location walking distance from the courthouse. I’ll be roomies with another attorney who shares my practice area. I wanted to move into an office sharing arrangement where I had other attorneys nearby with which to commisserate. I’m excited and nervous at the same time because I’ve raised my overhead. But it’s been a year (gasp) of running my own practice so it’s a good time to upgrade.
It’s been crazy. I have more work than I can handle. I looked over my client list and realized I’ve more than doubled the list in a year. I started out with a couple of pro bono clients and some lower-income/low-fee clients last year. Now I have one low-fee client, 1 pro bono client, and a ton of work on other cases. I also have some clients appointed by the court and I’m working part time for the government.
In spite of myself, I think I’m well on my way to having an established solo practice. The problem now is having “me” time carved out. I’m starting this weekend by refusing to work. I really should work, but I also really should take some time off.
The Jenny Craig thing is still motoring along. I took time off over Thanksgiving. The real go-getters stick to the plan over the holidays. Me, not so much a go-getter.
This isn’t much of a blog post, but I had to write something to get myself going again. It’s been so long since I posted that I had self-imposed pressure to publish a brilliant post. Then I didn’t post because I wasn’t feeling brilliant or witty or at all newsy.
Oh wait, I have gotten hooked on a couple of series thanks to DVD releases:
- Dexter is incredible. How did I go so long without watching Dexter? We blazed through the DVDs just in time to bring us to the new season. Now the new season only has two episodes left and we’re starting to panic.
- Lost. I ignored Lost for the longest time just because it was popular. (See how I am?) During a dearth of decent new DVD releases we decided to give it a shot. We are now hooked. I think we are just about done with Season 2. We’ll sit and watch about 3 or 4 episodes at a time. I’ve actually stayed past up past my bed time because I had to watch one more episode to see what happened.
- Loved, loved, loved True Blood. The first season was over way too soon.
Today I spent four hours in court for a one hour hearing.
To add insult to injury, the sky dumped little ice balls on my head as I trudged from the courthouse to the car.
Only to find a wet parking ticket stuck under my windshield wiper.
Ah. The glamorous life of a litigator.
This weekend I lived dangerously and took the entire day off Saturday. On Sunday I only devoted a couple of hours to the “must be done before Monday” projects. Then I turned off the light and turned my back on the gazillion other items clamoring to get my attention. It’s time to set some boundaries.
Really, I don’t mind working late or working on weekends, which is the heart of the problem. I could easily get sucked into being a beyond-repair workaholic. Not healthy. So the new rule is that if I don’t have anything that absolutely has to get done over the weekend, then I take at least one day off.
For the first time ever I had a housecleaning service come in and do a top to bottom clean. It was worth every penny. There was a lot of grunge in this house that had been building throughout my pursuit of higher education. For instance, I cringed if any guest ever looked up to see all the cobwebs and dirty dust bunnies on ledges and hanging in the corners. It was serious Adamms Family material. I’m planning to have the service come back every two weeks. It keeps the Zen flowing.
I’ll try to update this blog more, honest. I did a little spring cleaning by replacing the snowy Malamute with the grassy Dachshund in the header.
Ye Ole Solo Practice is picking up nicely. I had a run of new client calls that resulted in actual clients. I could use another run like that in the next week or so. I’m carrying about nine clients right now and I think I could potentially carry about a 30-client caseload comfortably. Every one of the cases has interesting facts, or legal issues, or both.
Last week my world was temporarily kicked off the tracks when my purse was stolen. The rotten thief didn’t get more than a dollar in cash, however, it was a major payday for cool stuff: iPod, designer eyeglasses, Shure headphones, designer purse. I was livid and it took an entire day to get my life back in order. I’m over it now, but I would relish it if they caught the loser who ripped me off.
The week also brought about a sudden realization that my house is sinking in dirt and I can’t bail quickly enough. I hired a housecleaning service. It’s my hope to keep them coming every two weeks. We’ve yet to schedule the initial cleaning. I’m waiting for bated breath for the day they do the Big Clean.
This weekend I took two days and relaxed and recreated. I realized I hadn’t taken a day off since January 18th. That’s a good way to get a good case of burnout. Since things are getting busy, I’m heading to Montana for a long weekend in a few days. I decided I’d better get a trip in before I become overwhelmed with court days and deadlines.
The singular “con” instead of “cons” was deliberate because I’ve only experienced one downside to working from home so far. The downside is that it is always there and easily accessible…always. I’m having to exercise a form of self-discipline I didn’t expect which is not to work. I’ll often find myself at 7:00 p.m. thinking of something I need to do and heading downstairs to the office. I need to set some limits on myself so I don’t end up with a whopper case of burn out.
On the pro side, there are plenty. Working in jammies, sweats and blue jeans tops the list. Having canines milling around is a close second. There’s something about a dog or two passed out on the floor next to me that makes me more productive. Blasting music while I work is another bonus. In an office atmosphere with people around, the polite thing is to play music that can barely be heard from a foot away. As a result, it ain’t worth it. Plugging in the ear buds on the iPod is an option, but once the phone rings or someone comes in to talk, the ear buds become a nuisance. Here at home, I plug my iPod into a speaker system and play it at the volume I like and play the music I like (which is not conducive to a professional office – believe me).
So far the arrangement is quite satisfactory. I’m advertising in two papers and chasing referral business. I accepted a couple pro bono cases that I took mainly because right now I have the luxury of taking pro bono work because there isn’t any paying work to compete for my attention! I’m hoping to take on one or two pro bono cases a year (maybe more depending on complexity) because family law is an area where there is a huge need for low income legal clinics or pro bono work.
So far I’ve been keeping very busy doing start-up stuff like opening empty bank accounts, setting up advertising, setting up forms, printing out pertinent court rules and statutes, and trying to figure out how to make Quickbooks do what I want. It’s incredible how busy I can stay with only two clients! But the goal is to get set up in the front end so that when things start rolling (fingers crossed) I’m ready.
I’ve been quiet but very busy. You see, I jumped off the interview circuit. Yep, no more mailing out groveling cover letters and writing samples only to be followed by an interview with non-committal so-called employers. Tedious. Instead I decided to try something I swore I’d never do. But, you have to click the link to read about it after the jump. (Go ahead, click it and indulge my attempt at being clever.) Read the rest of this entry »
Sorry for dropping off the face of the earth for the holidays. It was one of those years where the holidays were all-consuming.
We did the usual trip to Montana, leaving our dogs and parrots in a petsitter’s care (she does a really great job). Travel was precarious with snowy roads and freezing rain. We played with the Papillon puppy, Smudge, and I have some more photos to post once I yank my memory card out of my camera. Read the rest of this entry »
