Apologies again for my lax communication. Its just that the message has not changed overly. I’m still almost there, but not quite ready for public consumption. Sometimes I think its just that I’m terribly pedantic and proud, but there are some pretty major bugs in it still, which are getting worked on, but just not there yet…

What I am trying to do at the moment is just focus on obvious bugs that would impede a user’s ability to use or understand the application. I tend to get distracted by smallish design issues, which take up the developers time.

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Apologies for my scarcity of entries lately. Life has been tough and busy lately. My day job has gotten hugely demanding, and I’m on the verge of launching my business. Life has become all about work at the moment, and my sleep levels, social life and exercise regime have suffered. I keep thinking surely this is only short-term, but the truth is, I cannot see an end in sight: until this business becomes self-funding, I have no choice but to work these crazy hours.

The hardest thing to deal with is lack of human contact outside of work hours. I live alone, which I love most of the time, except when all I do after work is go home and work til late. It can get a little lonesome.

The next hardest thing to deal with is the physical pain. No matter what you do, sitting in front of a computer for 16 hours a day, all week, is going to hurt your body. My back, neck, shoulders, and head are pretty much in a permanent state of anguish. I’d love to see a physiotherapist, but that requires time and money, neither of which I have in abundance at the moment.

So, I just find myself willing to be bestowed strength from my ancestors, hardy Cuban peasants and Spanish labourers, who lived tough lives without complaint. My life can hardly be called tough, comparatively. So I work long hours and my back hurts. I also live in a beautiful city, have a lovely home, and am surrounded by supportive friends and family. When my site becomes successful, all this will have been worthwhile, and even will enhance the value of the story. This is what I have to keep reminding myself!

I’m only relatively new to this whole blogging community business. True, I have been a personal blogger for quite some time (see my personal blog at FoodFictionFabulousness), but this almost professional process of regularly visiting a blog, commenting on other people’s blogs, and building a community is relatively novel to me.

But over the past few months, I have been lucky enough to have a few regular visitors, and although I have never met these people, their words of encouragement and advice tickle me with pleasure with each message they leave.

So, Val from Digital Labs, Alex from Microsmeta, Dennis and Jason from Thought and Theory, Thor, Lisa from Just Be, Leisa from Disambiguity, and many others, just a word of thanks! You really put a smile on my face.

I finally caught up on all my sleep this weekend, so I am ready for the onslaught of the next fortnight. We are in the final stages of development before user testing begins, so its when I need to be more actively involved than I have been to date. This means I have to do what my parents still think is impossible for me to do: kill my social life. My bank account and my day-job clients won’t accept me taking any time more than one day off per week (which I did today, thankfully, and avoided the horrific thunderstorm outside!), so I have no choice but to work 6 hours per night, every night, after 9 hours at work, every night, for the next fortnight. I lie - to keep my sanity, I will allow myself one night off each week, but the rest will be dedicated passionate slavery to my business.

Its so lucky I love it.

But its true, I have actually been turning down social engagements, which is really hard for me to do. I can’t say ‘No’ very easily, particularly when I really want something, so this situation is challenging for me. I’m the queen at procrastination normally, but its my savings on the line here, I really can’t afford to be frivolous.

So barring a sleep-over with my best friend whose boyfriend is out of town, I will be a sitting here in my little flat, chatting with my brilliant developers in Europe, writing Help text, testing code, giving feedback on new designs, etc. I’m sure two weeks of no social life won’t kill me… right?