On Working

 I have been working from home, very part-time, for about 7 months now. A typical week is between 5-10 hours for me; one week I think I worked 14, and that was Too Much. Not doing that again unless there's some sort of major urgency! My goal has been to work without impacting our family and home life, or my own ability to rest and exercise, and I'm *mostly* achieving that goal. Here's how:

*Annie has an online class from 9:30-11 Monday through Thursday.  I take that window of time and sit down at the laptop and do a solid chunk of work. Many days this is all I do. But this allows me to do the work while Annie is occupied (she's 12, so she can occupy herself easily, but I prefer to work when I know I'm not needed). 

*Otherwise, it's ballet.  Annie has ballet three nights a week (plus Saturday morning).  One night she has 3 hours of ballet, one night 2 hours, and one night she has 4 hours.  Finn has choir one of those nights and he works the other night, so I have a large swath of time where no one needs me, and if there's anything leftover that I didn't get done during Annie's class, I do it during ballet. 

*Every so often I do have to go into the office (maybe once a month?) for a couple of hours.  Annie and Finn have checklists and they carry on without me--that's one benefit to having these older children!  But in general, I am always home, and that's how I want to keep it.  Even teenagers need a mother around. :)

The primary challenge for me has been trying to fit in exercise, since sometimes I exercise first thing in the morning, sometimes later in the morning, and often I walk while Annie is at ballet.  So I'm having to be strategic about this, and I can't say I've gotten into a great routine yet.  I used to bounce out of bed and exercise, but now that I'm in my mid-40s, I benefit from a cup of coffee first and a little bit of waking up and pondering the day.  So I'm still navigating the best way to manage this....last night I was on my exercise bike at 7:45pm. Not ideal!

I like the work I'm doing and am extremely grateful for the extra financial cushion it provides us right now, but I am careful to keep hours limited (fortunately, this is mostly within my control).  There's not an endless supply of time in the day, and there's also not an endless supply of mental and emotional resources for me personally.  I want to stay pleasant with my family and not feel like I'm always rushing them, or giving them divided attention, and so keeping my work within very set boundaries (Annie's class time and ballet) helps me keep work in its proper place.  I think if I didn't have those set times, it would be a lot harder, because work could creep into the times I am trying to spend homeschooling, keeping house, etc.  So the number one tip I would have for anyone who is needing to incorporate some at-home work into domestic life is to give it as strict a boundary as possible. 

I'm the type of person who will suffer emotionally if my home environment gets out of hand, or life feels too chaotic, or the laundry isn't done, or things are not clean (growing up with a full-time single working mother, these things happened more often than she or I would have liked, and those memories are still very real in my mind).  Knowing that helps me stay very strict on how much outside work I'm willing to do. I am well aware that I'm privileged to be able to do this--my mother wasn't. She would have loved to stay home with us! But that's not how it unfolded for her; as a result, I don't take this privilege for granted. At the same time, we have made, and continue to make, financial sacrifices in order to keep me home and to homeschool our children, and to me they have been more than worth it. Our home is peaceful, relatively well-run, and generates a lot of nutritious foods! Most importantly to me, Annie and Finn have had a peaceful childhood that has been worlds away from my own, and I'm so, so thankful for that. 

Whatever my work is, at home or elsewhere, I pray it will always be a blessing to the people for whom I work. 

"Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us,

and establish the work of our hands upon us;

yes, establish the work of our hands!"

-Psalm 90:17