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Hubby forgot to wake me up at the butt crack of dawn today, so I enjoyed a little extra sleep and leisurely began my day (as usual). It’s not often I have to do anything at any certain time, and I think I function best that way. Working from home, and as an independent contractor, I do enjoy certain pleasures when it comes to flexibility. While 15 hour work days alternated between nothing to do for 2 days can be frustrating, I really can’t complain. I get to sleep in a bit if I want to, get up and make coffee, go let the chickens out and enjoy some fresh air for a few minutes in the morning. I can start my work day at 7am, or noon, or 8pm, whatever works best for me on that particular day. If I really wanted to, I could pull extra hours one week and the next only work a couple of days.

It’s a luxury that I can’t imagine living without, particularly as the primary caregiver for a 3 year old. My hope is that I’ll be able to work at least half-time for myself within 5 years, to be able to apply all that I am learning to advance other people and companies’ businesses to my own ventures. There’s really no work you can apply as much passion to as your own dreams.

Today’s morning coffee is from Trader Joe’s (can’t always afford Stumptown, darn it), a fair-trade organic whole bean from Nicaragua, ground this morning and brewed in my french press. Soy creamer and turbinado always top off my caffeine fix. Lil’ E and I both enjoy a bowl of Kashi cereal and rice milk for breakfast. He usually eats a lot more than me, devouring at least one fruit, a handful of baby carrots, etc etc by mid-morning. I, on the other hand, nibble on a few things I’m feeding him but don’t have another meal until dinner. I also usually eat after he goes to bed, a snack and maybe a glass of wine.

Today’s work agenda proves to be a typical Monday- one which begins around noon and ends around 11pm. I’ve got a newsletter html site to reformat, a portal page and recipe page to create, and a 100+ slides PowerPoint presentation to finish. I’ll take a break around the time Hubby comes home, hopefully take Lil’ E to the park for some good ol’ large-motor movement, likely Frisbee. Until then, Lil’ E will occupy himself with a DVD from the library, some free play with his toys while we listen to music, and an art project I’m going to set up for him with some tracing and cutting exercises. I have no idea, as usual, what I’ll cook for dinner until about 5pm, when I wander into the kitchen and see what I can come up with. After awhile the chickens will go back in their coop for the evening, Lil’ E will bathe and have stories and songs and then be tucked in around 7-7:30pm (probably Hubby’s job tonight, with my workload). I’ll continue to work and finish my day with a shower and crawl into bed, likely around midnight.

So, that’s it, a little snapshot into a very typical Monday for me. If I were to create a pie chart of how I divvy up my time, days like this are a little skewed towards work. But then some days I only work 2 hours, so it kinda all evens out in the end.

Things will be changing soon, when I begin child-swapping TWO days a week at the start of June. I hope that giving myself three days to get all my hours in for the entire week will help me consolidate my time and allow Lil’ E four days of more activities, and a playmate to boot. If I can reclaim most of my late evenings and my weekends in order to spend more quality time in relationships, it will be a huge blessing.

Muy interesante, si?

I’ve shared here and there about my decisions surrounding childcare and work. I know so many moms struggle with it, and others maybe don’t, either because they are able and want to stay home with their kids or because they can afford childcare and want to work. There’s usually a lot more gray than that though. There are stay-at-home-moms that sometimes feel a twinge of embarrassment when some one asks, “And what do you do?” There are moms who work outside of the home and love it, but feel a sad or guilty whenever their SAHM friends recount the day they spent with their child at the zoo. There are WAHMs, of which I am one, who work from home, the “best of both worlds” as they say, struggling daily to get work done, retain sanity, and raise a child without Dora the Babysitter Explorer.

The topic itself has probably been exhausted beyond all reasonable desire to discuss it further- on television, in magazines, in playgroup, just about EVERYWHERE a mom goes. We all take some chunks and then go about life, trying to “do what’s best” for our unique families. No one quite knowing if they’ve got it right either way.  All of us loving our children so much.

My one and only, Lil’ E, will be turning THREE years old this summer. Simultaneously, a job I’ve been working for a looong time as a “temp” had an open full-time position, more or less created in hopes that I could move into it. The position sparkled with “best big companies to work for” kind of perks. It was so exciting to think about having a full-time permanent, salaried job with benefits and bonus’, a little travel, some routine and consistency. My initial thoughts? SURE, I can put Lil’ E in preschool every day, NO PROB!

Then I did the math.  Preschool, no matter how low I assumed the figured could go, would take a very large chunk of my income, nearly half of it. Taking Lil’ E to and from childcare would take 1.5 hours minimum out of my day, (and a perk of working from home is staying in pj’s and no commute!)

Even knowing that by taking the job and putting E in preschool would be an enormous financial strain, I was still ready to try making it work. Hubby and I would both keep part-time jobs to pay for childcare, we would do whatever it would take.

But in the end, as many of you know, it just wasn’t feeling “right”. I struggled with it every day and every night for a couple of weeks, and finally admitted to myself that there must be another plan for me. I did the opposite of the “planner” side in me and just decided late last week and over the weekend that I would not be applying for this job. I talked to my boss about it yesterday, so it is official.

And you know what? My decision has since been continually reaffirmed by little things and big things every where I go. I feel lighter and healthier than I have in like a year (even though I am also more broke than I have been in like a year!). Most interestingly, some one from a magazine found me over at VivianWrites and might have a consistent, flexible part-time use for me within the mag that would pay very close to what I am currently making at my “main” job, which is essentially going to be filled by a permanent employee while I lower my involvement to a very “as needed” basis.

I have also begun formulating the homeschool preschool “curriculum” (if you can call it that) that I will be using with Lil’ E for at least half of every day. I will have more flexible work, less conference calls and meetings, and be working slightly less than I have been over the passed year. I don’t have details planned out, which is a little weird for me, but since going with my gut, or maybe my heart, has been so far so good, I think I’ll ride this Surrender Train a little bit longer and see what sights I can view along the way.

What a strange passed few weeks I have had. I’m not sure where to begin and how much I am at liberty to share, but suffice to say that my employment situation (like the rest of the nations?!) has been in limbo (sort of?) and out playing golf and just plain driving the “planner” in me bonkers.

I love working, I really do, and I tell myself that I am darn lucky to do what I do, from home, even if I barely pay the bills, even if I feel Lil’ E is being neglected, even if I do not have the job security of permanent employment nor the perks of benefits or paid sick days. The long and short of it is part survival, part pleasure.

My (main) job has been more or less back and forth, one month I am planning for the inevitable discontinuation of my current role by brainstorming possible new careers (web design? in-home childcare again?) and the next month I am toying with the real possibility that I will be hired on permanently, which will be both a financial strain in some ways and simultaneously a great peace of mind. I struggle with seeing how things “work” out there in the great big world, where a job I already work can’t just be, well, my JOB. But I know life and corporations are more complicated than that and I try daily to leave things in God’s hands - while my captain insano “be prepared” speech turns on and I start worrying all night long about June 1st’s rent!

It’s fairly exausting to worry, as I am sure you all know. It’s not a positive energy and rarely leads to positive actions aside from getting you moving, which may or may not be what you actually need to be doing. Freud might say that being a “doer” is overcompensating for “dreamer” parents, who knows. Several people, some of whom know nothing about this situation in my life, have mentioned something along the lines of the following advice: Get to that quiet place where you can hear, and go from there.

In the meantime, let me tell you - this brain is so not quiet, and my body feels at times like its under panic attack for real! I know that the God I have relationship with is so so so darn good and true and faithful, and never once have I been regretful for surrendering my plans and worries over to him. At the same time, I am habitual in my efforts to take over and PLAN for Him, and not doing so takes concentrated effort just about every milli-second of the day.

That and two facts you will find rather TMI (”too much information”, for the grandparents): I have the first of these in like a decade and they are driving me crazy with preoccupation and additional worry AND I am SO this.

[/rant].

I plan to enjoy our last day with Ethan’s bud, Finn, on Friday, as the family we child-swap with will be moving to the east coast this weekend. We might meet a new childcare possibility the same day, more of a “nanny-share” (God, You’ve got a sense of irony about these things, don’t you?) This weekend expects to be a sunnier one than we’ve had as of late, and I plan to soak it up as much as realistically possible (Farmer’s Market on Saturday, some Coop building in the backyard, so on.) The fresh air always does me good, (one reason the carless thing is likely less of a big deal to me than it might otherwise be), so perhaps by early next week I will have some post’s for you of great fun and jubilation

Hope every one is having better luck in the future plans/economy/emotional health department - as my brother ALWAYS SAYS:

Can’t complain- Things could be a lot worse!

As the timer ticks away my “work” hour, Lil’ E patiently plays with his choo choo’s. He also, while potty training the Naked Method, pooped in his room during my “work” hour.

Obviously, life as a work from home mom is a little unorthodox. I woke up this morning to the realization that it was President’s Day, and while many of the people I work with get a paid day off, I get to file my taxes and take a nap, sans income. Of course, I’ll play catch up on some things and get in some hours today anyhow, so I’m grateful for the “holiday”.

This passed week has been what folks in Portland lovingly call “The February Fake Out”; the temps rise, clouds part, ground gets a little less soggy, and citizens rejoice. We took some glorious walks this weekend, saving the bus fare in exchange for the crisp oxygen. I got to garden a bit last Friday while the kiddos and Peter the Rabbit ran around the yard. I have never experienced the thrill of seeing bulbs shooting up, revealing that under the dead leftovers of last year’s seasons, something new is stirring. I couldn’t wait, and got a dark red potted tulip at Garden Fever to bring in and place on my kitchen counter. It blesses the sun by opening up in mid-day and showcasing its dark and velvety inner core. I never even knew what tulips looked like when they opened up, or that they opened up at all!

So, while you must excuse me for any cheesy metaphorical stretch this is for the average non-Lit mommy blog, I can’t help but feel the little February fake-out open up some things in me that have been lingering under the impending death of old seasons of my life.

When I began this blog, my son was a nursing cruiser not even one year’s old. Now he is lengthening, widening, expanding every which away, ingenious enough to inform me, “Mama, you’re my best friend ever ever ever” or “Mama, you and I have Quesadillas in our butt.”

In the past nearly two years of writing this blog, my career was that of a brand new graduate, technically a “temp” for a great publishing company, doing whatever the heck was asked of me and learning as much as I could to gain experience. (There was the few months I was freelance writing first, and most of the time I held additional part-time jobs on the side.) Pulling away the end of the “toddler” season of my life, the “first job” layers that are all decrepit and mossy, I can see a few sprouts coming up. I’ll turn 24 in one week, crazy enough. What will mid-twenties have in store for me? I will phase into new and maybe risky career moves (shh, I’ll tell you more about it in a few months) in the next year, and I can sense that in many ways I’ll have to learn to surrender some of my best laid plans for those that might not be as comfortable and secure. Of course, I’ve got an entrepreneurial spirit so I’ll enjoy the ride.

So there you go, a few insights into my life, in general, while I sip my “Authentic Cajun” mug boasting a little blurb about “joie de vivre”.

Check out the latest over at VivianWrites!

I am very proud to announce the redesign of my business website, VivianWrites, and with it my freelancing status is set to “WRITER FOR HIRE!”

Check it out!