7/10/06: A little of this, a little of that

No exciting news this week. I ordered Quickbooks Simple Start, but haven’t received it yet. I also ordered more textbooks, but haven’t received them yet, either. My tutoring schedule is barely busy enough to pay the rent, but this is expected this time of year. Schools around here start back the first of August, so it’ll get busy then.

Writing is going well. I’m continuing to switch back and forth between the two projects, although it’s hard to break away from the re-entering of The Daydream. What a great idea! I’m catching many things that I know I never would have seen while just reading. I’ve re-typed the first three chapters and I think they’re much better than before.

Another small thing is that I had a good 23-mile run on Sunday. I felt a little bad after mile 21, but after one extended walk break, I was able to resume running in short spurts. At least I covered the entire distance. I’m going to try a little different approach from now until the marathon. I’m going to do 20-mile runs some of the non-long weeks—this because I can’t do one of the long runs as intended. I’ll be attending an important all-day meeting that day. Here is the old plan and the revised plan:

Old Plan New Plan
7/9: 23 23
7/16: 12 20
7/23: 26 16 (This is the day I have the meeting.)
7/30: 12 26
8/6: 26 20
8/13: 12 12
8/20: Marathon Marathon

I’m hoping that throwing in a couple more 20’s will make up for the 2nd 20-miler. We’ll see.

I’ve been doing some speed work during the week lately. While chatting with a running buddy a week or so back, I heard how much his speed work helped his distance running, in addition to reducing his 5K race times. He inspired me to resume speed workouts. Using the interval timer on my stopwatch, I’m doing one minute of speed followed by two minutes of recovery at an easy pace. After another week, I plan to increase the speed interval by thirty seconds, then a minute. I’m curious to see if this makes my distance running easier.

Activity is increasing in preparation for the 2006 Florida Writers Association Conference, to be held November 10-12. I’m co-registrar this year, and the registrations are coming in faster as the deadline for the early bird fee approaches. It is July 31. Judging from past years, we’re going to have a good attendance this year. Marcia Rankin (one of my personal heroes) has the most impressive roster of presenters yet, so the quality of the conference should exceed last year’s excellent conference.

Until next week, I wish you happiness and success.

For my tutoring service, visit http://WiseOwlTutoring.net.

For more information about my writing and editing, visit http://BettieWailes.com.

7/4/06: Shopping for software

This week I’ve decided to address an issue that I’ve been trying to avoid for months. Since my tutoring business has grown, I’ve come up with several methods of keeping records—all of which are various Excel spreadsheets. The difficulty comes when I enter the same data in two difference spreadsheets. I keep one record by date and another by student. So every session gets entered twice. I know there is a simpler way.

A few months back I tried to learn Access, thinking that relational database is the answer. That proved to be not the answer for several reasons. First, my installation of Access doesn’t perform like the manuals say it should. I bout two books on Access and tried following the tutorials. But I rarely got the screen that the book described.

Second, (perhaps because of reason #1), I couldn’t unlock the magic key. I kept thinking that any second, I’d uncover the secret code, and then it would all become clear. I gave up before that happened.

Third, from little I did discover, it appeared that Access isn’t really the tool I need. I need to do more than store data. I need the spreadsheet capability to keep running totals for each student.

So I’ve been in search of accounting software that is geared toward billing by the hour and tracking payments received. I rarely generate a physical invoice, but that ability would be nice. I think I’ve decided on Quickbook’s Simple Start. Several years ago I used Quickbooks as treasurer of my dive club. After a short learning curve, it was pretty easy to use.

If a reader has any ideas to contribute, I’d appreciate an email at bettiemw@yahoo.com.

I had an enjoyable time yesterday when I took three of my grandchildren out to eat. We visited about everything going on with us.

I have no big plans tomorrow, but will use the time to work in my yard. Happy Fourth to all of you!

For my tutoring service, visit http://WiseOwlTutoring.net.

For more information about my writing and editing, visit http://BettieWailes.com.