Showing posts with label working. Show all posts
Showing posts with label working. Show all posts

Getting back to normal

JG | 10:51 AM | , , | 0 comments


After a month of being three hours away from home Monday-Friday, D is finally home. It was harder than I ever expected. Three of the four weeks, the little guy and I made the trek out to visit D (hence my staying-in-a-hotel-with-a-toddler post). Because he had to work overnight shifts, the little guy and I had to stay out of the hotel during the day before naptime so he could sleep. So we still didn't get to spend a whole lot of time together. I know the time away was hard for D, too, because he really hates spending time away from the little guy.

We did manage to get in a family trip to a zoo while we were out there, which was a lot of fun. I also took the little guy to an apple orchard, playground and wildlife preserve while D was sleeping during the day. I felt bad that he couldn't be with us for all the fun, though. I have to say, my hat goes off to those who have spouses who travel all the time for work or who are deployed. I don't know if I could handle being separated from D all the time.

Working was interesting as well. The hotel had wireless Internet, but as I mentioned before, the connection was less than stellar. The little guy took a nap every afternoon while we were visiting D, but I had to go hide in the bathroom until he fell asleep since being able to see me was too distracting. However, I did manage to get in my normal hours, even though my seat on the floor was a bit uncomfortable.

The photo above, by the way, is the result of me having to be on the phone for work for 30 minutes while the little guy was awake. Obviously he's figured out that he can't really get in trouble when I'm on the phone. Like I said, things are getting back to normal ...

Sometimes I think my life should be a sitcom

JG | 1:31 PM | , | 0 comments


This morning I found out I had to be on a conference call at 10:30. Those are always difficult when the little guy is awake and running around, but it's more time I can bill for, so I always call in, no matter how last minute. Of course, the little guy and I happened to sleep in this morning, so I didn't have much time to prepare.


In the hour and a half that I was on the conference call, I filled up the little guy's cereal bowl three times, cleaned off a highchair and toddler coated in Rice Krispies, had to go searching for my phone charger when I got that lovely "20% battery left" notice, got the little guy cookies, dealt with a 15-minute potty trip (we're beginning potty training, and the little guy is VERY enthusiastic, so it's a lot of up and down off the potty), and broke a mirror. My cell phone, on speaker and mute, followed along the whole time.


Just another day working from home ...

Last week in review

JG | 12:40 PM | , | 0 comments



Although I work from home 95 percent of the time, every few months I have to go into the office for a day or two of meetings. Last week was that time again, so for two days I got up before the sun was up, put on actual grown-up clothes and left the house with the little guy still sleeping to board a train for Chicago (pictured above). Although getting to spend time with grown ups for a couple of days, along with actually getting to see my coworkers in person, was lovely, I'm so thankful to work from home.


Anytime I have to go in for meetings, I feel like I get a glimpse of another life, a life I could still be living had I stayed at my job in a Chicago suburb instead of leaving to work closer to home nearly two years ago. There are times that I miss the "adult" time and the actual work of being a magazine editor, which I so enjoyed. That morning cup of Starbucks brought back memories as well. But I know now that working from home was completely the right choice. Just the two days of commuting left me exhausted and missing the little guy. I felt like I was barely home and then it was time to get him ready for bed. No job is worth missing that much time with my son. I will admit, though, that the paycheck from last week with all the extra hours will be great.


This week my husband is out of town for work and will be gone during the week for the next four weeks, so I'll be playing single mom. Kind of a funny opposite from last week. However, another plus of working from home is that the little guy and I will be able to visit D for at least part of the time that he's gone--I just need to bring my laptop.

A tale of two states

JG | 12:41 PM | | 0 comments


Once upon a time, my husband and I both worked in Illinois even though we live in Indiana. The commuting was rough, but we liked our jobs and appreciated the much cheaper housing costs in Indiana with the bonus of living near family. Then the little guy was born and we both changed jobs to be able to work and live in the same state. We got used to the 10 minute commutes, saved a bunch of gas money, and no longer needed to panic if we left something important like a wallet at home. Now that I'm actually working from home, my husband is back to working in Illinois.


Even though his hours aren't really all that different now, I somehow miss my husband more now that he is back to commuting. Although I didn't take advantage of it all too often, it was still comforting to know that I could take a quick drive and say hi to him at work if I wanted. I'd often pass by his workplace when going grocery shopping and the little guy would always point and say "Dada" when he saw it. Plus it was nice to know that if something horrible happened, he was just a few minutes away.


Funnily enough, before getting my work-from-home gig, I applied for many jobs in Illinois. They were all closer to home than my previous job in Illinois and some were only part-time, but I was prepared for awhile to go back to commuting. If someone had told me a year ago that by this time in 2010 I would be working from home and my husband would be back to working in Illinois, I don't know if I would have believed them.

Home alone

JG | 10:02 AM | , | 0 comments

Yesterday, for the first time in months, I was home alone. Well, I had the dog with me, but I was the only human in the house. When I worked in an office near home, I would occasionally run home at lunch to throw in a load of laundry or grab something to eat, but I was only there for 30 minutes at the most. Yesterday I was home by myself for more than three hours. That is definitely the longest I have been alone since the little guy was born two years ago.

My husband was at work and my mom had offered to watch the little guy so I could get some work done. Even though he was asleep most of the time he was with my mom, I still felt guilty coming back to the house alone. My brain knew I was coming home to work, but it didn't feel like that when I walked in the door. I don't have an office, so working involves me sitting on the couch with my laptop, which is what I'm doing right now and the little guy is playing on the floor next to me. Because I wasn't going to work, I was going home to work, I felt like I was abandoning the little guy in a way. Between the guilt and the overall feelings of weirdness, I didn't get as much accomplished as I should have.

Since my mom is a teacher and she's off for the summer, she'll be watching the little guy about once a week with the hopes that I can cram in a bunch of work in one day and then have more time to do other things the rest of the week. Next time I'll probably be home alone all day. Here's hoping I can get over the guilt and the weirdness and actually be productive.

The endless workday

JG | 10:24 PM | , | 0 comments


In my eagerness to make up for a slow start in my transition to working at home, I've become a little bit of a workaholic. I get up in the morning and before getting out of bed, check my email on my iPhone. Then I get the little guy up, get him breakfast and ... check my email again. Then, if I don't have anything to start working on for my communications job, I start researching articles for my website writing gig while the little guy plays. After lunch, the little guy goes down for a nap and the work really begins. I try to cram in as much work as I can, either taking up the full 2-3 hours with my communications job or trying to write as many articles as I can. When the little guy wakes up, I try to separate from my computer a little, but I usually check my email a couple more times before dinner. Then, depending on how the day went, I write another article after the little guy goes to bed or at least spend some time searching for article titles to checkout so they're available when I have time to write the next day.


This isn't to say that I don't get distracted by Facebook or Twitter or reading news headlines, but I do end up spending a lot of time on my laptop. When my husband commented that it seemed like I was on my computer the whole time he was home--and this is after spending a decent amount of time working while he was at work--I knew it was time to establish some boundaries. On days when my husband actually works early, I try to get everything done before he gets home so we can spend some time together as a family without the sounds of keyboard typing in the background. I've also tried to put the laptop away more when the little guy is awake, since the whole point of me working at home is to be able to spend more time with him. Last week we took advantage of the nice weather between the crazy storms and went out to play in his sandbox, pictured above. The laptop stayed inside, although I will admit to a couple of quick email checks from my iPhone.


I guess that's the dangerous thing that can happen with working at home--depending on what you do, there's not necessarily a time to "punch out." It can be so easy to spread work out in bits in pieces to the point where it feels like you're working all day every day. Here's hoping I can learn to condense my workday a little bit from now on.

The power of mute

JG | 10:32 AM | , , | 0 comments


I had a conference call I had to be on this morning and was a little worried about how it would go with the little guy running around the house. The true test of a work-at-home situation. If the little guy made any noises, not only could they be broadcast to everyone calling in to the meeting, but would also be heard by a conference room full of people via speaker phone. Thank God for a mute button on the iPhone that turns off the phone's microphone while on a call. Using this plus the speaker phone worked fairly well. My husband was also home, so he occupied the little guy as best he could. There was a scary moment, though, when I was going to have to speak and the little guy was making all sorts of noises playing with a flashlight. I had to run across the house, pray that he didn't pitch a fit over me leaving the room, quickly take the phone off mute so I could say what I needed to say, then immediately put it back on mute. Thankfully he didn't start screaming, because with our house, I could be on one end, my husband could take the little guy into a closed room, and there's a good chance his screams could still be heard on my phone. He's really well-behaved for the most part, but I think we're going to have to work on what "quiet" means.

Next week I'm actually going to be going to a meeting, so I'll be working out of the house for a whole day. Now that I'm starting to get used to the whole working-from-home set up and don't feel like I'm just taking time off, I wonder if it's now going to feel weird to be gone for a day. I'll actually have to set my alarm and put on real clothes!

Going back to the iPhone, it's a big day in this house because today is the release of the newest operating system for the iPhone. While most people are excited about the multitasking feature, my husband and I are most looking forward to the new app organization feature. Supposedly you'll be able to organize your apps into folders (I say supposedly because I haven't downloaded the update yet and my husband is currently in the middle of it), which you can then lock if you want. This means that the little guy can play with our iPhones, but we can lock away everything except the games we want him to play. No more deleted apps, no more settings getting switched, no more photos and videos ending up in the garbage. No matter how closely we watch him when he's playing with one of our iPhones, he's just too fast to prevent all the damage and he's so tall and sneaky it's hard to keep the phones away from him entirely.

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)