Angeline Foster 2m 619
The views of this article are the perspective of the author and may not be reflective of Confessions of the Professions.
I am a stay at home mom. Working from home seemed like a great idea! I was determined to stay home with my two kiddos as I wanted to home school both of them, and just enjoy as much time with them as I could before they hit that tweenager zone and wanted little to do with uncool grown ups. I was always too afraid to take the leap from the workplace, but fate intervened and forced me to do so. I started out by doing a few different jobs from home.
First I stumbled into babysitting for other parents, and had several children to care for along with a newborn. It was great to have so many kids around, but it started to feel like I was giving my kids very little attention. My home was constantly full and parents would come and go at all hours. It felt more like a work place than a home. Finding that balance was important to me. I began working as a receptionist/bookkeeper for an accountant around the same time as a few of the kids I was taking care of moved on.
Eventually I stuck with just the receptionist job, which I did from home. I found this took up a lot of my time, and I was just shooing my kids away to answer the phone. I was working through the night to take care of the bookkeeping. Daycare would certainly be more fun than that! So I decided to take a chance on something that I had always loved, and lived, to do. Writing has been my hobby/obsession since I was little, and it has always been part of my life. I had very little confidence in my writing, I just knew I had to do it for a release, for fun, it was just a necessary part of my life. Now I am able to write stories for an income, and it is wonderful.
It still takes a lot of juggling, as I often have a child beside me while I am typing, or singing in my ear, or begging for one more bed time story, but it has been well worth it. Just today I took the kids to the library, and while watching over the top of the computer I was typing away. They had a chance to get out, and I had a quiet space to work. It is really hard to come up with the perfect schedule where schoolwork gets done, the house gets clean, work gets completed on time, and maybe there is time for a television show.
It can be very stressful, and it takes a lot of focus and determination to get through the day sometimes. That is the hard part. The best part is that my kids take an interest in what I am doing. When I am not bearing down on a deadline I can let them help me come up with stories. They will spin some very amazing tales, and it is great to see their imaginations at work. I also read the stories with them, which they really enjoy.
My day is nothing but hectic, between the early morning rise, and working until most nights four in the morning. But it is an awesome juggle, because I am doing something that I love, while spending time with the people that I love. There are certainly things that could go smoother. I try to keep an eye out for areas that I can make positive changes in, and do my best to roll with the punches. I feel very lucky, even when I am ready to pull my hair out, that I’ve had this opportunity.
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