It's been six months since I wrote my last blog post. Life just got in the way. But now with my new career title, I'm hoping to start up again. That's right. I'm now part of the SAHM crowd (Stay At Home Mom - for those of you who aren't familiar with the acronym). We've been bouncing around the idea of me possibly staying home for quite some time but it never really worked out. Now the timing just felt right so we decided come the start of the year I'd say good-bye to my part time job and hello to staying at home full time. It just makes more sense for us right now.
How do I feel about it? Mixed emotions for sure. Although recently I was only working three days a week, I loved my job. It wasn't stressful, I worked with a really fun group of ladies and I can't say it wasn't nice to get out of the house and away from kids and laundry. At the same time, I am really looking forward to spending more time at home. Before I had any children, I always said I'd be a working mom. I had no desire to be a stay at home mom. I was independent! I had a husband that could help me with the house so why shouldn't he! I was a professional woman! Then Sofia came and I was more conflicted. I wanted to stay home but it wasn't financially feasible at the time so I was slightly bummed at having to go back to work, but it is what it is. Except that the more time passed, the more I wanted to stay home. I wanted to have the extra time to be able to have playdates and go to the park and do fun stuff and just watch my kid(s) grow up and I couldn't really do much of that when my days off were filled with errands and housework. And finding time for my own hobbies was getting harder and harder to do. So I'm sad to leave work, but I'm glad to stay home.
Being home all the time is not going to hit me for another few weeks, I know. Right now it just feels like a stay-cation. I have one whole week of SAHM-dom under my belt and it has gone really well. I menu-planned! I did the laundry without a mountain of folding piling up! Adam and I tag teamed cleaning the house one day so that took all of like two hours! I even clipped some coupons! And look at me, I'm blogging!! I'm realistic - I know I'm not going to have THAT much free time. I do have plans on how to spend what little free time I have. First I need to start working on waking up earlier. I used to be such an early riser. Like years and years ago. Now, not so much. But it's very difficult to get going when I get up after the kids. So the goal for next week is to hit the hay early so I can wake up at least a half hour earlier than the kids. Hopefully get some coffee in, maybe be lucky enough to get a shower in. Then I'm going to keep working on the menu planning. My biggest concern about staying home is dropping down to a one income household so I'm doing my part by cooking dinners at home 90% of the time. Most of the eating out we used to do was because I was too tired to cook on days I was working or running errands all day. I'm hoping that mapping out our meals will make cooking and grocery shopping easier and more economical.
Then hopefully I'll get into a rhythm and can add in some crafting or maybe even exercise. I'd really like to make 2015 the year I start selling some of my crafty goods online. That's down the road, but not by much. For now I'm going to enjoy my kids and enjoy cooking dinners at home each night.
