It is such a mysterious place, the land of tears.

Why is there no margin before the first character in the visual editor? #tinymce could use about 10px margin to the left. Strange.

Ok. On with the show.

If you’re reading this, you probably know me on Twitter as @angiemeeker. For five years, I’ve organized WordCamp Columbus (Ohio), which was AMAZING this year, btw. I’d like to think I had something to do with WordCamp Dayton and WordCamp North Canton getting started during that time, and the Cincinatti and Marysville meetups, too. I think technically the WordCamp organizing makes me a contributor to WordPress but I’m certainly not a WordPress developer, and I’ll probably never have a contribution to core. I did submit a ticket to trac once, about adding back a clickable search icon to the plugins and theme search box… Oh, and usually, I earn my family’s income building things with WordPress at angiemeekerdesigns.com.

I would like to spend the next month working in the .org forums, and I’d like your help to do it. I could write a great sales letter or even launch a Kickstarter to convince you to help me do that, but honestly, I just don’t have that in me tonight, so I’m just going to write, and I’ll try to be brief. This is me, asking for help, and hoping there are a few out there who get me enough to say yes.

Early this year, my husband’s mom was in a car accident and broke her foot. She couldn’t drive or walk on it for months, so of course, we helped as much as we could. She lives about 15-20 minutes away, and simple things like laundry, shopping and doctor appointments. – we could help with those because we have such flexibility in our schedules. WordPress has gifted us with that, as it probably has you, too. She finally healed up in late spring/early summer and is back to her normal, spry self.

We also help take care of my mom who has a rare autoimmune disease and lives in assisted living. If you follow along on Twitter, you might know that last year, we went to over 90 doctor appointments for her, many lasting half of the day or all day. The year before – over 100, including a full month in the hospital. Thankfully this year, she is doing much better and we’ve only had maybe four or five appointments each month. In July, her previous assisted living facility closed abruptly when the state shut it down, and we spent a week scrambling to both find her a new home, and then move her into that new facility.

Just two weeks after that, Bob’s grandma was diagnosed with cancer. His grandmother is dying of breast cancer turned into liver cancer, and it’s happening very quickly. Bob’s mom used all of her sick and vacation time herself when she broke her foot. Because we work for ourselves and again, have flexibility in our schedules, we’re spending most days at his mom’s house with his grandma, helping her through these last days. Many days, we’re driving to their house after school lets out to make them dinner and help around the house and to just BE with them. In fact, Bob is there right now, sleeping in a chair next to her hospital bed so he can help her get up and to the bathroom through the night. It’s awful, and I hate it, and I don’t want to talk anymore about it because there have been so many tears this week already, I literally can’t even. Literally.

*Sigh* It hasn’t been an easy year. Maybe you know the feeling.

You and I know that in our business, you’ve got to keep your pipeline full. And it’s not a surprise to any of us that if you don’t, your pipeline will dry up, and eventually, you’ll not have any business. This summer, I let it dry up. My mind has been on finishing existing client work and looking after our families. I hope I don’t sound flip about this, because it’s a failure on my part to not figure out how to do all of this at once, and it’s one that might just do my little business in. There just has been nothing left of me at the end of the day.

What I’d LIKE to do is take a break from client work for the next month, and all of the marketing, communications and project management that comes with it. BUT… I have to work. MY income is my family’s whole income, so I can’t just stop working. While I might have failed in this season, failure overall is not an option.

Last night I thought that perhaps there might be a way for me to move through this season by offering my time for support in the WordPress.org forums. I know it might sound strange, but there is something relaxing about answering support tickets. Something about knowing you helped someone with that ONE THING that’s standing in the way of success; something really rewarding about helping someone move forward in their understanding of WordPress. I’ve been told I’m pretty good at that, too.

I tell guests each year at WordCamp that we’re in this together. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. So that’s what I’m doing. Here’s what I’m asking: I can give up to 30 hours a week for the next four weeks to support in the .org forums if you’ll help support me. I can’t commit to set hours of the day, because we have doctor appointments scattered throughout the days and weeks between now and then. It’s likely we’ll have a funeral and all that goes with it. But I can commit to five solid hours a day, every day. Each night before midnight, I’ll share a link to my profile so you can take a look at my work.

My goal is to raise $5000 to allow me to work in the forums for four weeks. If you’d like to contribute to that, you can use the link below.

PayPal.Me/angiemeeker

One hour = $35
One day = $178
One week = $1250
Two weeks = $2500
Four weeks = $5000

If you think this is an awful idea and want to tell me so, please don’t do that in the comments. Just email me at angie@angiemeekerdesigns.com, or better yet, just don’t. If you want to say something positive, you can do it in the comments below. If you have other options for me that you think might help, please feel free to email me at angie@angiemeekerdesigns.com. I really do want to hear what you’re thinking and seriously, thank you in advance for any support you might give.

Thank you,

Angie