Average Joe Mama: Is there a "Plan M?"

I've been working at getting a job for the last several months now. My resume is solid enough that I'm getting in the door for some great interviews. I mean the 2 hour interviews that end with friendly banter and the "we'll definitely be in touch." I've felt good about positions and have even been told I'm a front runner. My name must be on a bathroom wall at the watering hole where these potential employers go, because I am getting nowhere. Actually, that's pretty funny. If the interviewer really loved me and was ready to hire me and went into a bar restroom and saw "Amy Gentry's resume is fabricated bullshit!". I'd almost feel better if that were the case! Although I will admit that I was asked to fill out some paperwork at my last interview and it asked me if I had ever violated the law "including traffic laws" and I fibbed and checked no (I had only received one speeding ticket years ago). And on the way home from this very interview I got a speeding ticket for $124! Karma, you little devil.

I have my fingers in several future opportunities and am writing proposals for potential freelance work, so I have no doubt that paying work will swing back around soon. But the waiting for the financial drought to end is definitely taking its toll. I have started concocting "today's plan" to get a little cash in hand. I'll spend a day sending my little website around to potential clients describing my freelance work, hoping I'll get a nibble. And the next day I will write sample restaurant reviews for an online Yelp-type site that asks "are you a kick-ass writer? Show us what a rock star you are..." in their job description. Then I spent the last few days cleaning up strollers, sorting baby clothes and printing out owner's manuals for various monitors, swings and toys that I lugged up to the local consignment shop. In my dreamland, I was going to walk away with easily $200-$300. Not so! I walked away with $22.50 in store credit, about $100 in possible consignment, and most of the items I'd brought in to sell. My eyes were burning too much for me to ask what was wrong with my babies' items. I realize they are overflowing with other kids' adorable dresses and corduroy jackets, but my infant dinosaur hoodie and pirate monkey onesie were perfectly acceptable for resale. Alas...I was only partially defeated. And so I moved on to what any other level-headed-unemployed-mother-of-three-in-desperate-need-of-income would do...I decided to make baby blankets using fabric hand-dyed by women in Africa. Thus I am fulfilling a philanthropic need that I have, as well as bringing in cash for my family. I figure I only need to make and sell about 2,000 of these to get us caught up financially. Making these blankets, along with the Kale Smoothie Cookbook I'm writing, we'll all be just fine and I'll be primed for retirement when I'm 87.