the work-at-home mom

I always thought it was my dream to work from home. 

there are a lot of really really great things about it, like not having to figure out what I'm going to wear, for one.  but man, these days I'm realizing more and more (and more) how super hard it is.  for me anyway.

I"m the type of person who needs a deadline.  I work best under pressure. 

I don't spend a week packing for a trip. I pack the day of, usually.  I never studied much until the night before a test (except for the AP History class I took, and didn't pass that test anyway.  so why bother.).  I never clean my house more than a day before someone's coming.  We get our taxes done on like April 13, every year. I have procrastination DOWN, man.  it's almost like an art. I can be REALLY super productive...when I need to be.

if you give me a deadline, I can get it done.  probably like ON the deadline, but still, it gets done.

but this whole life of living and working in these four walls isn't my strong suit.  I'm surrounded all day and all night and the next day and the next with no fewer than a hundred things I should be doing at all times.  with no deadlines.  and it's so easy to just think that I'll do everything later, because I'm here all day and all night and the next day and the next anyway.  I'll do the dishes later, I'll sweep the floor later, I'll make my bed later, I'll work on that order tonight instead of during naptime.  I'll work on that order tomorrow during naptime instead of tonight.  I'll do that load of laundry after this.  ok, no wait, after THIS.

until we get to the weekend.  I get so much sewing done on Saturdays, because I can just do it all day, instead of a little here and there. but I'm pretty sure that if I had a separate space to work, outside of the house, I'd be more productive at work, and more productive at home.  I'm not talking about during the week, yet...because I'm doing daycare.  but like, on Saturdays, if I was GONE and sewing I'd get even more done.  I wouldn't hear the chaos above me as Steve and the kids work to get the house clean, with very different expectations of how long each task should take.  and I wouldn't feel so guilty about not getting ENOUGH done so that Saturdays weren't so miserable.

although I tried that whole working outside the home once, teaching.  and I was not productive at home.  I was passed out on the couch totally exhausted.  but that was probably the hardest time of my life, for a variety of reasons.  so I think I'd do better now. the grass is always greener, right?

I need SPRING.  I need to get out of this house.  and no, not to go sit at a mall playground area.  they smell weird, and it's a like a big huge mom competition.  who disciplines the best, who has the best behaved kids, who looks the best, etc.  maybe it's just me.  I compare myself to everyone else. and I feel guilty really easily. 

my neighbor friends have thier house on the market, so I'm always checking the new listings, trying to imagine them in a different house, which actually turns into imagining US in a different house.  The next house I live in doesn't have to be much bigger, just one more bedroom would be nice (I don't think my teenage girls will still want to be sleeping in their cheap-o bunk beds).  and maybe some windows in the basement.  because if I DO have to work in my basement, it would at least be nice if the light didn't come from bad overhead lights, a few lamps, and the t.v.

because seriously, these walls are closing in on me.  The fall was nice because I wasn't babysitting and I wasn't budgeting this crazy much.  So if I wanted to go somewhere, I just did.  but now on Tuesdays and Thursdays I'm here, in this house, all day.  and M/W/F I do preschool drop-off and pickup, but not much else.  maybe a QUICK trip to the grocery store or Hobby Lobby or soemthing after we pick up brielle and before the kids get dropped off at the bus stop.  but then it's back to these walls.

and in the spring we'll get back to walking to the bus stop, in the morning and the afternoon, just to get out and do something.  oh, it will be so nice.  Right now Steve's been taking them to the bus in the morning and I just don't feel like getting the girls all bundled up and walking in the cold and wind to get them in the afternoon.  So they just walk back together.  but that means us not leaving the house...

so, um...yeah.  I'm not really even sure why I wrote this long whiney post. I've been reading so many different posts and articles and statuses lately about working moms and stay at home moms and all that.  they all make me laugh, probably because I'm stuck somewhere in the middle of the two.  so I see the benefits and curses of both.  and it's hard.  (but perhaps it's just motherhood in general??) so I wanted to write about it. 

or, maybe, just maybe, I wanted one more thing to do before I sweep the floor...