A new season

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I have moved into a new season of my life, both literally and figuratively.

For the past many years I have kind of had the best of both worlds. When my oldest son was born (now almost 12 years ago) I was able to stay home with him. This was really important to me, especially since we don’t have any family who lives nearby to help out. I know how lucky I was to have the choice to stay home. I was also lucky that I was able to move from my full-time job as a librarian into a substitute position. The great thing about the sub position was that I had total control over when I would work. When my boys were young this limited me to working on days my husband was off, which worked out well. As they have gotten older and are now in school full time I started working more and more, and during the last school year I was usually working 5 days a week.

That was, until the middle of June, when I found out that all sub positions city-wide were being eliminated. There were other departments in the city affected by this, but it hit the library especially hard – 18 people lost their jobs.

I wasn’t entirely sure how to feel. Part of me was sad, for sure. I had worked there for 17(!) years. But there was also a little part of me that has always wondered what I could do if I wasn’t trying to split my time between my work there and my work at home.

So, I enjoyed July and August with my boys being out of school, working from home. During those couple months I was still trying to decide if I needed to try and find another job, or if I should stick with online sales. In fact at the end of August I was in the middle of filling out an application (for a job that only comes open once a year) when I realized that I really, really did not want the job. What I wanted was to give myself the next 9 months to work from home and see what I could do when my time was really my own.

So of course I talked to my husband, and he was on board. The gist of what he said was – as long as we are able to pay our bills at the end of the month, we’re good. Do whatever makes you happy. Yup, he’s awesome. So I didn’t apply for the job, and I’ve given myself nine months (now down to eight) to see what I can do when my time is my own.

So far, this is what I have done. (This was as of 10 minutes ago, as I type.)

I have been working and working and working to get my “compared to same period a year ago” back up to 0. Because I was working so much at the library there were many months that my sales were 50% less than they had been the year before. I am soooo close to that goal! (Of 0%, ha. But we’ve got to start somewhere, right?)

I have many more goals that I am working towards, but that is my life right now in a nutshell.

I would love to hear about how the work-life balance is going for you. Do you have a good routine, or is it ever changing? Please share!