I’ve finally updated the section on Gage’s scaphocephaly. I now have information on how his craniosynostosis surgery went and before and after pictures. I really think very well of the work Drs. Cohen and Meltzer did on him, even if the soft spot down his skull is really unnerving.

It feels good to be able to get some work on the site done. No, this part isn’t for the money, as with much of the site, it’s to provide good information. While craniosynostosis isn’t that common, it isn’t rare either, so I think it’s a great thing for parents to be able to learn about.

It went very well. He has two incisions healing on his head, but the swelling is pretty much gone already and I can see his face is a bit rounder too. The helmet therapy will finish the job.

Focusing on Gage and his surgery really took a lot out of me. I’ve had a lot of help from family, thank goodness. I took a nap today while my sister watched the kids. My younger sister is coming to help on Monday too, since that’s a holiday for her.

Now the followup appointments begin. Gage gets his head cast for his helmet on Wednesday, then there will be two appointments a week at first after he gets his helmet, going down to one a week after about a month. He should have the helmet for at least three months, but then we’ll be done, aside from occasional followups until he is five years old. This is really a long term deal.

I’m having to find new ways to balance home business and family. It isn’t easy. Ariel needs a lot of attention, of course, to balance how much extra care Gage needs. We brought her sandbox out so that she has something she can play in for long periods of time. I’m trying to make sure to plan special times regularly just for her, yet still get work done with my business. No, it is not easy, but it’s exactly what I signed up for when I decided to work from home.

At least, I hope they’re settled. At Gage’s preop appointment yesterday, I was told we do finally have the referral through the right company, so everything ought to be fine now. Only took a lot of effort on my part because the doctor’s office kept going back to the old insurance. But finding out who was responsible for getting the referrals really helped. But having problems run up to about a week before the surgery was rather unnerving.

I’ll probably be gone from here for at least 2-3 days. I’m allowed to stay in Gage’s room, and being the food source, obviously I will. He may only need to stay for one night, which is nice. I’ll have to leave Ariel to Brent, just as we did when Gage was born.

I’ve been doing some work on improving the work at home section. I’ve added several companies, and I’m working on job descriptions, so that people know a bit more about what is expected for these jobs. Obviously, I could easily explain what a medical transcriptionist does, but other jobs are requiring research on my part. I think I’ll move the job listings to the same page as the job descriptions, just to keep them all together and make it easier to figure out what categories I have listed.

I just finished my update on my jewelry store. I’ve added some new merchants – Jewel Basket, Limited Jewelry, Titanium Concepts, Irish Celtic Jewelry International and JP Diamonds. Even though they are all on datafeeds, it was a lot of work. I had to set up each datafeed the way I wanted it to appear. Something I’ve found to be true no matter what company you deal with is that some are better at setting up their datafeeds than others.

Of course, the advantage to tweaking a datafeed is that the site may be just a little more unique, improving the odds that it will show up in the search engines.

I’ve also started working with Szul. I don’t have their datafeed yet, but I will be requesting it soon to add to the store.

I hope all these changes help my jewelry store make some good sales. It’s a fun site to work on, very challenging since I don’t know datafeeds that well, but how else am I going to learn.

Of course, the only reason I finished today is that Ariel is with her grandparents. I’ve been working mostly one-handed, with Gage sitting on my lap, but it’s still faster than trying to work while giving Ariel the attention she needs. After all, Gage takes several naps a day!

I’m so happy. I got to quit my medical transcription job at last. It’s something of a leap of faith to quit right now, but since I’m earning far more with my websites than I was with transcription (keep in mind I was very part time with it), it wasn’t worth continuing. Besides, with Gage’s surgery coming up, there are just more and more limits on the time I can spend working.

Ariel’s had a pretty good week. She got to try out her new skates she got for her birthday. They’re the Fisher Price skates. The only problem is they didn’t come with knee or elbow pads. She already has a helmet for her tricycle, so we at least have that for her. The skates lock so that one wheel doesn’t roll for when she’s learning to skate. The second setting, where the wheel is only supposed to roll forward, doesn’t work that well, but all in all we’re quite happy with these.

Working just on my business has been interesting. I’m expanding the store on my jewelry website, although you can’t see it just yet. I should have that up soon. I’m thinking about more things to market and just generally keep my income increasing and expanding my markets. I know better than to rely on just one income for any length of time. Jewelry is a bit of a tough market, but one I’m fond of, since I spent six years in that industry.