waving from home

I've been teaching my kids since there's no school now.  Yesterday, twins learned to sew on a button for the first time.

The good news is that everyone here at our house is fine, we have food, shelter, and good company.  We're all trying hard to work together.  My professor husband is managing his class online, and working in between helping with twins.  I have done a bit of writing when I can stay up late enough, or fit it in.

The rest of the time, I've been homeschooling two eight year olds, cooking, trying to keep things even remotely clean (hard with twins, two bird dogs, an old house and a spring melt), and keep everyone afloat.  And Passover is coming, and we need to get ready for that, too.

For me, it's not that different than usual, because I usually work from home.  However, I now have a lot less time to do it, and very little time to do it alone.  (Right now, twins are out bike riding with their dad helping them maneuver their way through all the snow melt puddles...)

The bad news is that I appear to have lost one of my writing gigs.  Today I received my copy of the Winnipeg Jewish Post & News and to my surprise, my column wasn't in it.  I contacted the editor to ask what had happened.  Apparently, my column didn't run--it was an oversight, but oh, by the way...from now on, he would no longer be paying columnists.  So, if I wanted to write for free, he would still put my columns on the website. Things change fast during a pandemic.

I'll be direct.  I was paid $75 an issue to write for this publication, which is not very much, but I wanted to support the Winnipeg Jewish community, so I did anyway...but I didn't write for free.  (Freelancing is, after all, my job and not my hobby.)  The editor did hook me up with the editor of the Vancouver Jewish paper, and for a while, both papers would publish my column and I would get paid more.  But now, due to the current crisis, I'm unsure of if and when my column will run again.  No more publication = no money from that gig.

Again, we are lucky, we have food, shelter, heat and health. (for now.)  I am grateful for what I have...but just now, I'm really sad and surprised to lose this-- I'll no longer be writing a column every other week for the Winnipeg Jewish community.

If you're sad about this too, contact the Jewish Post & News.  Show them your support.  Maybe somebody could help sponsor the column and help keep the newspaper afloat during this hard time...cause writers deserve to sometimes earn money to eat, too.