Where you Work

This big old rambling building is where I work. For now anyways. Currently I hold two jobs, this one and a small side job. Oh, and being a mom and the main house/life person for our family.

My side job is small, it brings in little income, and is one that I have wanted to quit for awhile. It's a pain in my butt to do, usually is on the weekends and always is an inconvenience. It's hard to quit though when money is so tight and it's a complicated situation with the people involved. However, the man that I am working for is selling off his business so I'm hoping that things will just come to an end soon. I believe they will.

My main job is working at the CPA firm my parents own. Being married to a firefighter and having kids, my work schedule needs to be really flexible because his is not. In fact, I actually dropped back to 3/4 time work before we had kids just because it's so hard to keep a relationship alive with the conflicting work schedules. If I worked a 5 day week, then I only have the weekends off and Peter almost always works one, sometimes both those days. I looked at a calendar for February of this year and figured that  if I worked Monday through Friday we would have had 3 full days together as a family in a month. That's not really enough. I think there are very few firefighter spouses who work a traditional 40 hour work week, it's one of those hidden downsides to that job.

So I work part time for my parents who don't care which days of the week I come in or if I have to cancel at the last minute to care for a sick kid or read during the 1st grade library time. As long as my work is done, they are flexible. It's been a great situation so far. As the kids are getting older though, I'm starting to feel my wings want to stretch a little bit. I love where I work, I love my schedule and I love being paid well. I don't exactly love my job or the work I do per se, but it's a choice. I get to eat lunch with my mom every day and see my Dad. I get to do all the work I want to do in the kid's classrooms and still bring home a paycheck for my family. It's truly a blessing and the absolute best situation for our family. For now. My parents aren't going to own this business forever, they are getting closer and closer to retirement and things are not always going to be this status quo. When they retire, I will move on as well but I'm not sure to what. It will most likely involve less money and more hours and less flexibility but maybe, just maybe it will be something that makes my heart sing. Being with my babies and being involved in their preschool and early grade school has been everything that I wanted it to be and for this time THAT has made my heart sing. Next year though, Mr. T will be in school from 9 to 3:30 every day. And I think that perhaps, even though there is no money or chance of grad school, perhaps I will find something else that makes my heart sing a happy song.