It is official...I am now a full time mama, and I couldn't be happier. I was worried about the reaction from the people that I worked with, and my family, but for the most part everyone has been really positive. Of course my mom just about died, but I figured that would happen. A single, independent woman who raised 2 kids on her own...of course she would worry. I, on the other hand, am not at all concerned. Well, money is always a concern, but I really need to just let it go and give it to God. He has never failed us in the past, and putting our trust and faith in Him is the most important thing.
I am overly excited about the opportunity I have to make my home my mission. I love to spend the days with Emma and have a clean house, so being able to be at home all day is great. Although, with an 11 week old, the house seems to definitely sit on the back burner. That's ok though :-) I am trying to be a litte more organized, and hopefully that will help out as well.
The big thing that I have heard (mostly from my mom) is "you've spent so much money on your college education!" That is the truth...in fact I will continue to be spending money on my college education for the foreseeable future. However, I really do believe that college was worth it, even if I do stay home full time. I majored in Business (which I personally think every person should major in, very useful information), and plan to use that knowledge to work our budget, as well as hopefully do some work from home. I have always enjoyed creating things, and hope that I can make some money off of it. I have been looking into the etsy shops, and think that it would be fun to have a little online business. It would combine a lot of what I love, creating, and organizing a business ;-) Plus, it isn't like I need to be at it constantly, so I can still spend as much time as I want with little miss Emma bean :-)
Ahhhh...new adventures...fun!
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Thursday, July 24, 2008
work struggles
Well, it seems my work from home option isn't really as beneficial to the company as it is to me. My boss did put together a very generous offer of me going down to fewer hours, but still coming into the office to work for 1 day a week for 6 weeks, and then moving to 2 days a week and so on. The offer is generous, I appreciate that they are trying to work with me, but the first thing I did when I saw the offer was cry. I am disappointed that I can't at least attempt to work from home full-time for a period and see if it works out for them.
Now what do I do? Well, Emma doesn't take a bottle, so going into the office is out of the question unless I can bring her with me. And then there is the fact that I will most likely be expected to accomplish the same amount of work in fewer hours. I don't want to go back, but trusting God to provide for us is also a big obstacle. I know that He provides everything we need, but man, taking that leap is a huge test of faith.
I know that if we have a renter everything will be fine. I know that I could always get another job in the evenings, or possibly do some bookkeeping for people. I also know that I want to be a full time mom. I want to be a homemaker, I enjoy that. I know that I probably could force Emma to take a bottle if I refused to breast feed her, but really, why would I want to torture my child just so that I can go back to work?
All of this is such a struggle. I want to do what is right for my family. I want to do what God wants me to do. But, how do I know what path is the right path? I am leaning towards not going back to work at all, obviously, but is that just because I don't want to go back to work? Or is it because that is what God wants for me?
The other difficulty is the fact that I love the people I work with/for, and my job is amazing. I loved going into work everyday, eating lunch with everyone and spewing off loads of simple living info I have gathered. I enjoyed all of it. But, maybe it is time to move on, and just hope that everything falls into place financially?? Ahhh...being 27...too many decisions! But in the meantime, if anyone out in blogland wants to move to Maine and into a brand new studio apartment, let me know :-)
Now what do I do? Well, Emma doesn't take a bottle, so going into the office is out of the question unless I can bring her with me. And then there is the fact that I will most likely be expected to accomplish the same amount of work in fewer hours. I don't want to go back, but trusting God to provide for us is also a big obstacle. I know that He provides everything we need, but man, taking that leap is a huge test of faith.
I know that if we have a renter everything will be fine. I know that I could always get another job in the evenings, or possibly do some bookkeeping for people. I also know that I want to be a full time mom. I want to be a homemaker, I enjoy that. I know that I probably could force Emma to take a bottle if I refused to breast feed her, but really, why would I want to torture my child just so that I can go back to work?
All of this is such a struggle. I want to do what is right for my family. I want to do what God wants me to do. But, how do I know what path is the right path? I am leaning towards not going back to work at all, obviously, but is that just because I don't want to go back to work? Or is it because that is what God wants for me?
The other difficulty is the fact that I love the people I work with/for, and my job is amazing. I loved going into work everyday, eating lunch with everyone and spewing off loads of simple living info I have gathered. I enjoyed all of it. But, maybe it is time to move on, and just hope that everything falls into place financially?? Ahhh...being 27...too many decisions! But in the meantime, if anyone out in blogland wants to move to Maine and into a brand new studio apartment, let me know :-)
Thursday, July 17, 2008
no idea for a title :-)
I've been neglecting my blog again. I don't know how it happens, but days and weeks seem to fly by now. Once you have a baby life seriously does change. Not that I am complaining, but the summer is half over already! Well, it is in Maine at least :-) My maternity leave ends in just 2 weeks. How sad. I have really been enjoying being a full time mama.
Last week I went into work to talk to my boss about working from home. I'm not entirely sure how it was taken. I sent in a work from home proposal on Monday. I haven't heard anything back yet. I'm hoping that they let me at least attempt to telecommute. It is a good option, since I am an accountant and all, and I can login to my work computer from home. Really, there is nothing that I can't do at home besides signing off on invoices, which I could do in the evenings if I needed to. Not a big deal. Whether my boss and his boss will think that is reasonable...no idea. Let's all keep our fingers crossed though!
My garden is doing really well this year. My peppers are growing really well, tomatoes are doing well, and the cukes are doing well. I ended up with a zucchini plant that I thought was a cucumber (yeah I really know nothing about plants). I thought I had bought a zuke plant, but convinced myself that I hadn't because it looked like the cucumber plants. So, that isn't doing too well since it is in a tiny pot. I'm hoping to get a bigger pot this weekend and see if I can transplant it. It's already dying, so if it dies from me transplanting it, well, such is life. Next year I will try and pay better attention to the tags before I plant.
The CSA is going great as well. I know I haven't been posting the pictures, and I really want to, I just have zero time. I'm excited that I have a second to sit down and write for a minute. Who would have known being a parent would be so tiring and not allow a lot of time for "extra" things. Well, maybe once she is a tad bigger it will go a little smoother. This past week we got 2 bags of new potatoes, 2 bunches of carrots, a bunch of dill, 4 zucchinis, a red cabbage, 2 bags of peas...oh and some early onions. All of it is really good. I shelled the peas yesterday and plan to freeze them. I think I will freeze the carrots too. The potatoes have been fried up with the zukes, yum :-)
We are currently working on changing the upstairs into a studio apartment. Our house is technically a duplex, but the upstairs is not really a great 2BR apartment, because the kitchen is kind of small. But, the living room upstairs is huge. I think it would be great as a studio. Plus, then we would only have one person living above us, instead of the family of 4 and sometimes 5 we had up there before. This area is not the best for rental income, so having that many people really just made us lose money. We are trying to get my Nana to move up there, she is 88 and paying more than her social security on oil. Not sure if she will come though. She has been in her house for the past 50+ years, and is stubborn...If not, we will try and get someone else from around here.
There is an awful lot going on in my life right now, lot's of thinking going on. I guess that is all I do though, think. Trying to figure out life constantly. I am trying to simplify my life, but man is it difficult. It makes me wish that I had thought of all of this simplification before I got into so much debt! I keep thinking, if we could just pay off the student loans, or if we could just pay off the car, or sell our land we would be set. Yet, none of those things are happening right now. The economy isn't great at all. I'm worried that it is going to be a long time before it gets better. And if it doesn't get better, what can I do to make sure that my family is ok? I know, I am always thinking about the worst possible thing that could happen, but sometimes I wonder how right I am. Last year I was convinced that the economy was going to keep getting worse, it has. I was telling my bosses in one of our lovely lunches that we were going to start seeing food shortages, we have. Maybe not us personally, but all over the rest of the world definitely. And think of how much food costs have continued to rise?! I'm worried about the ethanol production, and continuing to have farmers farm corn and soybeans for fuel. That's just wrong, especially when people out there are starving. And our dependence on foreign oil? Yeah, it is a lot to get my head around. Seriously my head just keeps spinning and spinning. I guess that is why my posts are so disjointed :-)
Matt and I, well more me than Matt, are thinking a lot about what food we need in order to survive. How much can we do ourselves, how much would we need to get from other people. Well, as of right now all of it. I am hopeful my garden will produce a lot so that I can can and preserve, but tomatoes and pickles are not going to sustain us for the entire winter ;-) I've been trying to source farmers in Maine that grow what we need, wheat for flour, oats for oatmeal, meat (actually already buy the majority of our meat from Snafu Acres). Milk...well...I don't like milk as it is, so I'm not sure I can really go for the raw milk, not to mention it is almost $8 for a glass bottle...not sure how big the bottles are, but I did see them at the health food store. We'll get there I guess at some point. I'm planning on building the raised beds in the fall. Any ideas on what I am supposed to do in the fall? This is why I do container gardening...easier to figure out :-) I think I read somewhere that I need to put newspaper down and then put soil on top of it. What kind of soil though? I guess I still have a lot of research to do. I'll keep my fingers crossed that we can get everything all done in the fall. We also need to put up a fence to keep out all the animals that live around our house...and to keep the neighbor from mowing our lawn. How can we ask the neighbor to stop mowing our lawn? It is very nice of him, and he is a retired veteran, but I don't like that he kills our lawn. And I was hoping to be able to pick some of the dandelion greens, since that is just about our entire lawn. Ahh well, when the fence is up it will obviously give him the hint...hopefully :-)
OK, well I guess that is about as much jumbled writing as I can manage right now. I hope that I will post more frequently, but we all know that is a stretch :-)
Last week I went into work to talk to my boss about working from home. I'm not entirely sure how it was taken. I sent in a work from home proposal on Monday. I haven't heard anything back yet. I'm hoping that they let me at least attempt to telecommute. It is a good option, since I am an accountant and all, and I can login to my work computer from home. Really, there is nothing that I can't do at home besides signing off on invoices, which I could do in the evenings if I needed to. Not a big deal. Whether my boss and his boss will think that is reasonable...no idea. Let's all keep our fingers crossed though!
My garden is doing really well this year. My peppers are growing really well, tomatoes are doing well, and the cukes are doing well. I ended up with a zucchini plant that I thought was a cucumber (yeah I really know nothing about plants). I thought I had bought a zuke plant, but convinced myself that I hadn't because it looked like the cucumber plants. So, that isn't doing too well since it is in a tiny pot. I'm hoping to get a bigger pot this weekend and see if I can transplant it. It's already dying, so if it dies from me transplanting it, well, such is life. Next year I will try and pay better attention to the tags before I plant.
The CSA is going great as well. I know I haven't been posting the pictures, and I really want to, I just have zero time. I'm excited that I have a second to sit down and write for a minute. Who would have known being a parent would be so tiring and not allow a lot of time for "extra" things. Well, maybe once she is a tad bigger it will go a little smoother. This past week we got 2 bags of new potatoes, 2 bunches of carrots, a bunch of dill, 4 zucchinis, a red cabbage, 2 bags of peas...oh and some early onions. All of it is really good. I shelled the peas yesterday and plan to freeze them. I think I will freeze the carrots too. The potatoes have been fried up with the zukes, yum :-)
We are currently working on changing the upstairs into a studio apartment. Our house is technically a duplex, but the upstairs is not really a great 2BR apartment, because the kitchen is kind of small. But, the living room upstairs is huge. I think it would be great as a studio. Plus, then we would only have one person living above us, instead of the family of 4 and sometimes 5 we had up there before. This area is not the best for rental income, so having that many people really just made us lose money. We are trying to get my Nana to move up there, she is 88 and paying more than her social security on oil. Not sure if she will come though. She has been in her house for the past 50+ years, and is stubborn...If not, we will try and get someone else from around here.
There is an awful lot going on in my life right now, lot's of thinking going on. I guess that is all I do though, think. Trying to figure out life constantly. I am trying to simplify my life, but man is it difficult. It makes me wish that I had thought of all of this simplification before I got into so much debt! I keep thinking, if we could just pay off the student loans, or if we could just pay off the car, or sell our land we would be set. Yet, none of those things are happening right now. The economy isn't great at all. I'm worried that it is going to be a long time before it gets better. And if it doesn't get better, what can I do to make sure that my family is ok? I know, I am always thinking about the worst possible thing that could happen, but sometimes I wonder how right I am. Last year I was convinced that the economy was going to keep getting worse, it has. I was telling my bosses in one of our lovely lunches that we were going to start seeing food shortages, we have. Maybe not us personally, but all over the rest of the world definitely. And think of how much food costs have continued to rise?! I'm worried about the ethanol production, and continuing to have farmers farm corn and soybeans for fuel. That's just wrong, especially when people out there are starving. And our dependence on foreign oil? Yeah, it is a lot to get my head around. Seriously my head just keeps spinning and spinning. I guess that is why my posts are so disjointed :-)
Matt and I, well more me than Matt, are thinking a lot about what food we need in order to survive. How much can we do ourselves, how much would we need to get from other people. Well, as of right now all of it. I am hopeful my garden will produce a lot so that I can can and preserve, but tomatoes and pickles are not going to sustain us for the entire winter ;-) I've been trying to source farmers in Maine that grow what we need, wheat for flour, oats for oatmeal, meat (actually already buy the majority of our meat from Snafu Acres). Milk...well...I don't like milk as it is, so I'm not sure I can really go for the raw milk, not to mention it is almost $8 for a glass bottle...not sure how big the bottles are, but I did see them at the health food store. We'll get there I guess at some point. I'm planning on building the raised beds in the fall. Any ideas on what I am supposed to do in the fall? This is why I do container gardening...easier to figure out :-) I think I read somewhere that I need to put newspaper down and then put soil on top of it. What kind of soil though? I guess I still have a lot of research to do. I'll keep my fingers crossed that we can get everything all done in the fall. We also need to put up a fence to keep out all the animals that live around our house...and to keep the neighbor from mowing our lawn. How can we ask the neighbor to stop mowing our lawn? It is very nice of him, and he is a retired veteran, but I don't like that he kills our lawn. And I was hoping to be able to pick some of the dandelion greens, since that is just about our entire lawn. Ahh well, when the fence is up it will obviously give him the hint...hopefully :-)
OK, well I guess that is about as much jumbled writing as I can manage right now. I hope that I will post more frequently, but we all know that is a stretch :-)
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