Big juicy personal revelation with a side order of guilt

Yesterday was a good day. A very good day. The baby had woken me up the night before several times because of a stuffy nose, I had to rush the girls out of the house first thing in the morning, but still a very good day. The thing that was different? I got to go to work.

I met the babysitter at the new office and after Sweet P was tanked up with milk, the sitter whisked the girls away for a fabulous 2-1/2 tour of the wonders of downtown Mebane. (This woman is the childcare score of the century, by the way. Bean and Sweet P both adore her already, after only two afternoons with her.) I stayed at the office with Husband and our business partner and learned all about our new fabric printer. I learned something new! I hung out with grown-ups and made grown-up jokes! I thought about our business at length!

It was only later when I took the girls home and noticed how cheerful and optimistic I felt that I realized it was because I'd done something other than caring for my own children. Yeah, that's where the big helping of guilt comes in.

I don't think I need to say here that I adore my girls, but I'll say it anyway for the record. I'm crazy about them. They're wonderful, unique little people and I enjoy seeing how they evolve everyday. But I've been thinking this week that maybe I'm not doing such a great job with this stay-at-home mom thing. I've never been a patient person, I don't do the imaginative play thing very well, and you know what? Some days I am so bored I feel like I'm going a little crazy.

There. I said it.

I would really like to work a little while someone else takes care of my children. Not full-time or anything, but that's what I want very much.

Is there life without the internet?

I've been struggling with finding the time to blog lately. And struggling with some new mixed feelings about my life + internet, too. When I posted about our cabin vacation a few weeks ago, I didn't mention how absolutely eye-openingly lovely it was to be without internet access or television for that week. Do any of you remember life before the internet? It's a distant dream, isn't it? I had forgotten how my days could be filled with real activities if I didn't have a computer doing it's daily time suck thing. I could read! I could sew! I could pay attention to the hilarious things my children come up with! I could think long thoughts! In short, I could have a REAL life and not some shadow life where I was just reading about what others are doing with their time, y'know? It made me want to go back to my pen and paper journal and just board up my little on-line cave here. Horribly luddite of me, I know.

But here's where those of you who know about Spoonflower, our (ahem) internet-based business, will start to think the obvious: "Um, you know you can't chuck that computer out the window if you've got help emails to answer and craft blog posts to write and all, right...?" Sigh. I DO know that. And I have no intention of avoiding that part of my new job description of stay-at-home, work-from-home mama.

I'm still trying to decide how to keep that feeling I had at the cabin, though, of remembering REAL ways to spend my time and energy. I'm a things-in-front-of-me kind of girl all the way, I guess.

Job widow

"Whatever you believe you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it."--Goethe

I'm not usually the inspirational quote kind of girl, but this one has stuck with me since the first time I came across it 15 years ago or so. Lest you feel all impressed and daunted by how erudite and well-read I am and shit, let me just say that I read that in the context of some magazine article about someone who climbed Mt. Everest. Can't even remember who it was, and I probably read it while waiting in a doctor's waiting room or something. See? Not so clever as all that.

But anyways, it popped into my head this morning randomly, probably as my sub-subconscious was mulling over Husband's recent job change. I haven't blogged about it recently because it occurred to me that I was being rather indiscreet, blabbing the details of his work life over the internet when things were still undecided and tense. Now I can tell you that he turned in his letter of resignation yesterday. His plan is to start his own on-line marketing agency, and already has a couple of clients lined up, and even a few people begging him to be their marketing directors if that doesn't work out. He appears to be good at what he does, though don't ask me exactly how he spends his working hours. Couldn't tell ya.

So last weekend he spent part of Saturday and all day Sunday working on this new venture, meeting with people he knows, and going over potential contracts. I had thought that this was an exceptional event and that once he was no longer still working at his current job he'd have normal working hours again and we'd have weekend family time again. Last night when I mentioned that I'd be glad when this was settled down some, he let me know that it may not. Starting your own business requires very long and often irregular hours, he told me, and though he didn't plan to work every weekend, he couldn't promise me that he wouldn't. And then he said, "I may have to work all the time just to pay all the bills." Which, how can I argue with that, being one of the people he's supporting?

I lay there awhile thinking all these things that started with, "But I...." You know, like, "But I need you to give me a break from the baby sometimes!" and "But I really want us to be able to do things together as a family on the weekends!" or "But I hate it when you don't show up for dinner and it's just me and the kids sitting there, and me all pissy because I just spent the last half hour cooking with a screaming baby clinging to my legs." Feeling sorry for myself, I eventually fell asleep.

Sort of hard to think of Husband's new thing as full of genius, power, and magic when the kids have nearly pushed me over the edge, but hey! I'll give it a shot, okay, honey? Y'all just think thoughts full of genius, power, and magic my way.

The day only half over...

I just called Husband for an update. He was not fired this morning, and neither was anyone else. But he's considering quitting this afternoon when he meets with the new boss one-on-one. Depends on the boss' attitude, I think. Or on what kind of mood Husband is in when the boss asks if Husband will be able to work with him and for him. I'm not quite sure what to hope for now. Maybe something along these lines:

He'll quit this afternoon, but it won't be this big, inflammed scene that will leave a bad taste in everyone's mouth and inspire nasty comments about his work there when other potential employers call for a reference in the future. He'll figure out in the next month exactly what sort of business he'd like to start for himself, he'll find a few others he gets along with brilliantly who think it's a fabulous idea, they'll all decide to work together and feel inspired to go to work every single day, and they'll all make tons of money doing it.

Yeah. Something like that would be nice.

In other news, the recycling contained a stack of newspapers, a crushed gallon container of organic low-fat milk, one empty fifth of Scotch, and one empty gallon of gin this morning. And me with my car in the shop today, unable to run to the liquor store. Meh. Even worse is that the mechanic estimated the repairs at somewhere between $470 and $600. But he'd call me if it was going to be more than $600. Wonder if he'd run to the liquor store for me for an extra $50.

Clearly, this day is a loss. Think I'll go watch some recorded episodes of "The Colbert Report" and work on Sister's quilt now. Nudge me when it's 2:15 and I need to wake the baby and get Sister from school.

Potential bad news this morning

Husband left the house at 6:45 a.m. this morning. He was going to un-decorate his cube at work, probably save things to disk from his work computer, sort through files and papers and all the stuff on his desk. Husband thinks it's very likely that he and his entire department are all going to be fired this morning by their new boss. This because the new boss flew in from Canada yesterday for his first day of work and refused to make eye contact with Husband or any of his employees. Refused to meet them or talk to them at all, in fact. And at the end of the day, another manager came into their work area and said that they all needed to be at work at 9:00 a.m. this morning to meet with him. Things don't look good.

I'm trying not to be too stressed about it. Husband has been talking about making a change for well over a year now. He doesn't like this new guy and the direction the company is going. He'd like to work for himself, he thinks, and not have to deal with sucky office politics. Financially, we'll be o.k. for awhile, so if it had to happen I'm glad it's now and not last year some time. (If it had happened then, the situation would quickly have become desperate with me newly out of work.) But still. Husband's worked there for the last four years and I'm pissed off for him that some new guy, younger than him and so very new to the company, could just walk in and fire him.

I'm waiting to hear from Husband now. He should be getting out of his meeting soon and will call me to give me the news.