Giving an obvious idea today - go watch a fireworks display. While some charge you to get in and up close, you can see them from far enough away that you don’t have to pay if you don’t want to.

And of course, many theme parks have fireworks displays throughout the summer. From the house I grew up in we could just watch the highest of the fireworks from Sea World, all summer long.

Pack some snacks, and even younger kids don’t mind staying up in most cases if you promise them fireworks to watch. Or at least so goes my experience.

Happy 4th of July!

One of the things that delights me most about being able to work at home is that there are so many options for it these days. The Internet has really opened things up.

I was invited a couple days ago to review a course on selling on eBay by Brian McGregor. It’s in prelaunch until July 7, and that means you can get a big discount on it right now. Sign up later, you’ll pay more. You’ll also run the risk of missing out, as he will only be taking on a limited number of students. It’s $197 right now, and the site says it will be $497 after the launch. That’s a healthy discount for moving quickly.

Why are the numbers limited?

Brian will be including some personal advice. If a lesson doesn’t make sense to you or you want clarification, you can email him and ask. He can’t do that for an unlimited number of people. He will also be willing to review any auctions you put up during the class. What better way to learn than to put your new knowledge to use right away?

Take a look and see if this course is for you.

Like the one I’m dealing with now… pregnancy. Wasn’t planning to have another baby now; in fact, we were trying hard not to. But this little rascal had its own ideas.

As my husband puts it, we were upset for maybe 20 minutes. The timing is rotten, after all, with him still out of work and a cousin with a son dealing with leukemia. But really, neither of us could be that upset about having another child together. Even if it does mean we need a new car. We only have one right now, and it has 4 seats. The middle of the back seat is plastic cupholders.

I’ve been dealing with plenty of nausea and general exhaustion so far with this pregnancy, which is about 9 weeks along. Finally told the family, so now I can blog it too. It was so hard to post about anything while keeping this secret! That, and I kept catching little bugs from the kids. Having a stomach bug when you’re already nauseous from pregnancy is pretty miserable! Especially when one of the kids throws up. My husband had to take care of that one, even though normally I’m the stronger stomach.

I’m still not past the nausea, but the tiredness is slowly decreasing. That’s a relief, since these past few weeks I’ve hardly gotten ANY work done! I go between starving and not wanting anything to do with food. Cucumbers taste particularly good, which isn’t a bad craving to have. Healthy, at least.

While my due date is in early February, due to the complications I had with my son (C-section, breech and near zero amniotic fluid), my OB wants to do a C-section at 38 weeks, sooner if the amniotic fluid is low again. So I’ve told this baby two things:

1. Please don’t be born too close to Christmas.
2. Never, EVER sneak up like that on me again!

The hardest part about trying to work right now for me is dealing with a changed schedule. Evenings are still my preferred work time, at least out of habit, but they aren’t currently my best work time.

I’m figuring this out bit by bit. It means a lot of changes in how I run my day. I’m thinking I need to blog and work earlier in the day, and read other sites later. That’s rough, as it means trying to blog with the kids awake.

On the plus side, things have been going well for my personal income, if still a bit rough for my family. If I can work things up just a little better, I can keep us in this house despite my husband being unemployed. That would be huge, although the COBRA health coverage is still a big issue for us. He’s looking at some retail jobs just to get some other coverage going, as well as income. I’ve told him to ask for afternoon/evening/weekend hours so that he can still easily interview if a good job comes along. Not good for family time, but for the long run it could be important.

The end of the school year took quite a bit more out of me than I expected this year. It’s not just getting used to having 2 kids in the house rather than 1… that’s easier some ways since they love to play together.

But my kids just had to throw in a stomach bug. And my sister-in-law is in town. And some other stuff I’ll tell you about another day. Gotta tell family first, after all!

So many little things conspired to tire me out so much that these past two weeks I’ve barely worked at all. Ridiculous really, but the combination of recent events has left me completely exhausted.

But I think I can get back to work now.