Why work? March 22, 2007

I’ve had several people pose this question to me after I’ve told them that I would love to find that part-time job that will allow me to work out of a home office and most importantly utilize my education and work experience. And I know some wonder it although they may not verbalize it. The real reason everyone asks/wonders is that in a little over a year, my husband should be making a decent income that would allow us to live far more comfortably than we ever had. It’s all relative though - I mean, before kids, I was bringing in all or most of the household income.

So why work when I don’t really have to? Well, to be honest, I miss it in some ways. I don’t miss the corporate world at all. But I miss finishing a project and getting the appreciation/recognition for it and I miss learning. Sounds self centered and egotistical, doesn’t it? Well, as many of you know, what they say is true - “Being a mom is the most thankless job.”

So where do I go from here? I have already found it to be very difficult to find a part-time, work from home job in my area. It appears the competition for the few positions out there is fierce. So I trudge along, making contacts, searching the internet for potential opportunities. Any advice?

The Little Artist March 22, 2007

Yesterday, all afternoon M was only interested in drawing with his crayons.  The problem comes when his drawing strays off his easel onto books, the baby monitor, etc.  Because I couldn’t supervise his drawing since I was making dinner, I had to take his crayons away from him temporarily.  But somehow, everytime I looked up he had a crayon in his hands toddling around the house looking for something to add color to.  Each time I found one in his hands, I had to take it away and put it in his crayon box which was high up on a shelf.  But somehow he kept getting his hands on one - like he had a secret stash somewhere.

When I was about 3 of 4 years old, a friend and I added some color to the bay window in our house.  Our window was floor to ceiling in height and had at least 15 panes to it in total.  Somehow we managed to add a lot of color with my crayons to each and every window pane.   I was reminded of this incident when I caught M adding some red to two of our window panes.  (Amazingly enough, M did not draw on any of our white walls.)

My husband uses this incident to support his belief in karma - what goes around comes around.  If that’s the case…I’m in big trouble.

Wish List Item #1 March 16, 2007

As some of my loyal visitors (those few that are out there) may note, I’ve really been horrible at keeping up with this blog. But I really do “think” about all the things I want to blog about, but when I finally have the time to sit down at my laptop, I’ve forgotten everything.

But one thing I’ve noticed lately, is my ever-growing *wish* list. You see, living on our family’s frugal budget prevents me from buying all those things that my materialistic side tries to convince my “down to earth” side that I need. Oddly enough, my husband has no problem with me buying stuff for myself - because I really never do buy myself anything. Anything I buy is usually for someone else - like the kids.

So I live vicariously through others, drool at the cool things I come across on the Internet, and mentally add it to my looooong wish list thinking someday I’ll remember it and buy it when our family income has increased dramatically - which I hope is not too long off, because let’s face it…I’m getting old.

So what kind of stuff is on my wish list - I’m sure you guys are all dying to know. So every now and then (when my memory doesn’t fail me) I’ll share something from that every growing list of things that are just out of my reach…at least for now.

(Phewww! Laptop almost crashed and this blog entry was almost lost into the black hole of oblivion…Mental note: add laptop to wish list…)

I’ve been wanting one of these for a while. Not much of a jewelry person, but I think I would wear this one for sure:

It’s a mommy ring - sterling silver with your children’s names engraved. Not sure why I’m so in love with it…maybe it’s the simplicity of the design - yet it’s meaningful. It can be found at Nell and Lizzy’s online shop.

 

 

I’m Back… March 5, 2007

It’s been a long time, but I’m back.  We’ve been battling a germ war in our house.  Except some runny noses, coughs and congestion, we are as healthy as we have been in a long while.  I’ve been thinking about blogging for weeks, but didn’t quite have the energy to do it.

As a reward to ourselves, DH and I went to a U Mich vs. Ohio State U basketball game Saturday with DH’s co-worker and his wife (who are OSU alums).  It was nice to have some time without the kids to watch our alma mater ALMOST win (OSU beat UM in the last couple of minutes of the game despite UM being up for the majority of the game).  However, just our luck, we ended up sitting in front of two toddlers (from 2 different families) who constantly kicked our chairs and whined the entire time.  The kid behind DH began sputtering his lips and spraying saliva all over the back of DH’s head.  As annoyed and nauseous (from the constant kicks to my chair) as I got, I tried my best to be understanding.  We too have a toddler who would probably be doing something similar if we brought him to the game.  Amazing how becoming a parent changes the way you look at and react to things.  If we weren’t parents, I think I might have reacted totally differently…I don’t know what I might have done, but it sure would have been different…