Sunday, January 27, 2013

Return of the Mack

 MOOD MUSIC

That's about right... I am returning to the race of the rat. The daily grind. The land of the no longer un-employed.  As of tomorrow morning (1/28/2013) I will official punch someone else's clock. Not only am I now a bald, beautiful diva. I am a gainfully employed one!

I have had exactly seven days to shift myself from full time author/house wife, back into the mentality of "career wife" aka "chic that has to get up and go to work to make ends meet like the majority of the population".
First to clarify, this is a joyous occasion. I've been out of work for nearly a year. Now don't get me wrong, there are certain scenarios where not working is extremely appealing to me. If I had children at home to care for ( no I am not talking about babysitting, I mean full fledged mini mes). Or if the economy would allow for us to survive on just one full time income plus what I make as an author ( and trust me, we all know how slowly I write so we can also safely say...that ain't happen).
Other wise, I'm a worker. I've worked in some capacity all my life.
My first job was as my grandmother's personal assistant. She called me her gofer...as in Miss Anne go do this, go do that, go over there for this, go over yonder for that.
I got paid in starlight peppermints, snickers bars, and days worth chewing tobacco. I also had my own company car ( a shiny dr pepper go cart that my uncle one from mcdonald's).
My primary job was quick grocery runs and running meals/messages to my uncles as the worked on the farm.

But seriously I've worked my entire adult life. I worked through college. I left undergraduate to come home and work. And typically speaking I've never not left one job unless I had another lined up.  Since the summer of 1999 ( 15 years) I've probably only NOT worked ( including sick time and vacation time and this last stint ) for 14 months.  Some times I worked more than one job, often times seven days a week all combined.

So this last ten months has been very interesting to me. Now lets me clear, I wasn't completely out of work. I did a lot of freelance stuff for some publishers and authors. I baby sat and I did some catering. What I didn't do was get up and punch a clock. It was nice to stay in my pj's all day ( i have an extensive collection of pj's that mostly consists of pilfered t shirts and baggy gym shorts and colorful knee high socks). Only having to get dressed when I wanted to. I didn't spend my annual ten dollars on make up, didn't have to tame the fro into socially acceptable coils, curls or coifs.

Didn't have to wake up and the plumbers crack of the high moon ( cuz seriously, I usually would be up  before the donut makers).

Didn't have to answer to anyone. Worked at my own pace for the most part on any projects I had.
Was free to watch cartoons and eat cereal all day.
 But honestly that was only fun for like a month, then i was kinda bored. I like working. I like knowing that I contribute significantly to the financial well being of my house hold. Conversly, I hate owing people money and for a while times were very very hard and I know owe several beautiful people a significant chunk of change.( which i've set up a budget to begin paying back cuz I refuse to be indebt all of 2013).

Anyway thats all a very long intro into the actual reason I decided to blog.
The ish you don't realize you do when you work a day job( or several DAY jobs). For instance shopping. I shop weekly right now, its one of the best ways to take advantage of sales and particularly fresh produce. In the last few months I have very rarely done the sort of "bulk" shopping that I remember us doing before.  This weekend (ending this morning) was the first time in nearly a year. Now you might consider that I could still shop weekly as my new job is Monday through Friday. I say yeah, probably, but it really is more frugal for money and time to purchase certain things in bulk the supplement weekly for fresh and seasonal items.
Plus, who the heck wants to spend a significant portion of their weekend in lines at stores, or in traffic after having worked 40 plus hours a week.

Cleaning... sigh, I hate house cleaning. I really do. I need to get rich so I can hire a maid ( even though I am one of those people that cleans before the maid shows up...yeah there is a story about that).
But having the luxury of being at home meant that I could mostly clean whenever I wanted to.
With exception of the kitchen I could freely let ish just sit. AND I found that even though I hate cleaning, because I was here all day, I tended to get it done and it was no big deal. I am already stressing about when will I find time to vacuum all the carpets and what day is probably going to be best to scrub the toilets and showers now. Will I have to dedicate my weekends to laundry like in the days of yor?

And back to that shopping thing. Meal prep.  As a stay at home wife I can't say I make the hubs breakfast every morning. Heck, I don't even make me breakfast every morning, but I did the majority of the time and dinner every night.  Dinner can get to be kind of a production. Because I was home all day I had time to decide what we were having and prep it. Now not only do I need to think about that in advance, I've also got to coordinate our schedules to figure out who is going to be home first to start dinner. ( Definitely going to need to replace my croc pot now). It looks like we are about to return to those days were I spent the first weekend of every month making and freezing homemade casseroles and oven dishes( you name it I can probably make it..king ranch chicken, chicken spaghetti, dorito , casserole, baked zetti, Shepherd pie, pot pies, lasanga, chicken mexicana, enchiladas) Looks like we might be heading to sam's club to purchase that deep freezer a little earlier than we thought.

and thats just the tip of the ice berg. I'm starting a new business venture with a couple of great friends thats going to need time and attention. Of course I still have many books to write, edit and sell. Oh and we are definitely still TTC.  Yup married and striving for kiddos. And holy poop face we gotta teach our dogs to be outside most of the day ( are you kidding me these mutts are giving me the side eye already. they don't do "outside all day" thats not even in their vocabulary).

Yup, this transition period wasn't long enough... I gonna need a serious shot of coffee each morning and a host of prayers for this first week.

But I am excited, and ready for it.
TO THE BATMOBILE........

1 comment:

  1. Back to the rat race for Drea Riley. You will do what you have to do to get through the week. Some stuff may go to the side. But it will get done eventually.

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