I'm back

Hello world... do you remember me?

It's been so very long since I posted, I took the whole summer off and then some!

I've been busy busy busy. First of all, I spent the summer dedicated wholly to my family. Every day was designed for the kids. We did so much this year, and I am so thankful for the great weather! Then with the start of school, came the start of a brand new adventure for me, a real paying job!!! It's been so long since anybody gave me money for work that I was practically doing hand stands (while somehow managing to be reserved in front of the giver). I am now the proud owner of a whole stack of $20 bills! I'm collecting them. Of course, over half of them are spoken for, I need to pay our family budget back. With all my capital expenses, and all, isn't that always the way? But I've finally passed the "break even" point and am earning an income! Woo hoo!!!

I can't believe the number of people, who say to me "it so nice for you to have your own money" I'll tell ya now, if it worked that way, for my husband and I to have our "own money" I would be sorely hurting and on the street! From paycheck number one we have considered our money to be "ours". The bitter truth for me is that I will never be worth as much money working 3 jobs as he is working 1. Nobody will ever pay me that much. But that's okay... Luckily for me, in our family, we don't assign a monetary value to each other. I may not have been drawing much of an income since leaving the outside world of work 6 years ago to have my son, (heck, who am I kidding, I didn't draw much income then either!) but I have saved us child care costs. It hasn't been a sacrifice in the least. Yeah, maybe we eat tomato soup and grilled cheese more than we'd care to admit, but we're happy.

In any event, I am now "working" again. Happily self-employed. I care for 3 children after school plus my own 2. Of course 3 of those kids are in kindergarten, so it's only 2-3 days a week that I have 5 children. I meet the kids at the bus stop, they come to my house for a snack, and we do homework. On the light homework days, we have an extra "lesson" where I reach into my old hat and pull out my tricks from tutoring days gone by. We speak French during this time, as they are in a French Immersion school. I love my work. I love that I still get to be home during the days (which also means quality 1-1 time with my daughter on her days off) and most importantly, I am there at the end of the day to meet my kids. Being home during the day means I can afford the time to cook from scratch, which means no last minute fast food... I get most of the housework done during that time which means more quality time in the evenings for everybody. I love this work so much I can't see myself doing anything else, which I think is the true measure of success.

It's good to be back, and I hope to be a daily writer again.