Although journalism lends itself to many different careers, I knew I'd be the person who always had a regular full-time job. My journalism professors in college told tales of their adventures in freelancing, traveling across the country to research articles, writing for different publications all the time and never really knowing when to expect their next paycheck. No thank you. There was a reason these seasoned journalists turned to teaching--although they received wonderful clips and bylines, full-time freelancing also left them with multiple broken marriages, empty bank accounts and serious nicotine addictions. That was the life I saw ahead of me if I chose to go the freelance route, and that wasn't for me. I wanted to get married, buy a house, have a family and then actually spend time with that family. All of that required a regular paycheck, health insurance and a reliable schedule, none of which were offered with freelancing.

So how did I end up here? Well, after five years of regular office jobs post-college, I took the plunge to become a full-time work at home mom (WAHM). I left a magazine job I loved because the commute left me with barely any time to see my (at the time) 5-month-old son outside of the weekends. That wasn't the type of mom I ever wanted to be. Thanks to the economy, I was left with no other options but to take a non-journalism office job near my home. The schedule was great, the commute was a wonderful 10 minutes, the pay was OK, but my degree was being wasted. So I went down to part-time at the office and found a part-time communications job that allowed me to work from home. Just a couple of weeks ago, I left the office job and now work completely from home, doing both the communications position I already had and additional freelance writing.

This blog will be part mommy blog, part working-at-home blog, part what-was-I-thinking blog. The lack of a consistent paycheck already scares me and trying to balance the mommy stuff with the work stuff has been hard. I plan to hash all of that out here, too. To all you SAHMs reading, help me keep my sanity as I spend most of my days with a 2-year-old as my only company. To those who are reading who also work at home (kids or no kids), help me calm down about the money part and figure out how to actually get some work, and not just housework, done at home. Hopefully I'll provide some entertainment and maybe offer some "here's what I did and it was great/it backfired spectacularly" advice.