deadline met/new career choice?

I have my life back. sigh.

The thing is, I was the one who voluntarily (sort of) gave my life away--for free--to someone who is an acquaintance--who doesn't have any real ties to me other than being from my church. I say sort of voluntarily because I couldn't say no, even though I would have preferred not to have been involved in the project at first. It did turn out to be an interesting experience, but was it really worth all the hours I spent on it? Don't know. But it was fun and a new experience.

I have spent countless hours...all my free time in October...editing a 308 page manuscript for someone. OK, if I were going to try and count...at least 40 hours this week as I spent all day yesterday and today on it...so maybe 80-100 hours all together. This is some Personal Progress project.

My house is neglected, but that's nothing new. My brain is expanded, and that's always good. My hair might be greyer more grey. My husband might be wishing he'd never spoken those words, "My wife likes to read. I think she'd be a great proofreader." My kids will be thrilled now that the laptop won't be in my lap all the time. I will be noticing how colons are used and capitalization of military words and numbers in everything I read.

So, I've decided, though it might have been stressful, it's was also kind of nice...and both for the same reason: pointing out mistakes. Think about it...proofreaders get paid to point out the mistakes of others. And some of us have been doing that for free for years when we could have gotten paid for it.

Sometimes it was easy to find what was wrong and fix it. Here's where the stress comes in: other times it was very difficult. I would know something wasn't right, but I couldn't figure out how to make it better. Coming up with 24 different ways to say the word "target" or "maneuver." And to make these changes but still try to keep the author's voice in there is not easy. (this is informal writing so I feel it's OK to start sentences with "and" and to have fragments parade as sentences, too)

So, I think I could have been a proofreader/editor in an alternate reality. I would need to keep a masseuse on retainer, though. Don't know if they make enough money to do that.

I occasionally think about other careers that would have worked for me. I think I would have like to have been an accountant. I love numbers. But, since I don't really know what an account does (it may be nothing like balancing my checkbook at all), maybe that isn't a wise choice for me.

I think being a genealogist would have worked as well. Except, once again, neck and shoulder massages would be necessary.

A research scientist could have been a good choice for me. Except I never would have been able to narrow down what to research. I love so many things.

And, there isn't much money in it, but being a professional student would have been nice too.

"Reader One, out." or is that "Reader One. Out"? (did you know that's the only time when punctuation is placed outside the quotation mark is when the whole is a question but not what is being quoted? You learn lots of things as a proofreader)