A little pain in a little spot

This is one of the reasons I am happy not to be working full time any more.

Today I had to go into a client meeting. I had to bring the kids to my mom's house. I forgot to bring the swing so that the baby would have some place to sit and watch the kids. I forgot to bring a baby bottle for the milk. Luckily my mom had some ones left over from my nephew. I find out that the client meeting is starting two hours earlier than I expected (luckily I had gone in early because I wanted to work on another project). We had a meeting with our client for several hours, then I sit around waiting for people to give me parts of the proposal I'm working on. I then drive back to my mom's, pick up the kids, and drive home. If I had to do that every day, I'd go insane.

I now have a pain in my back, above my left shoulderblade. I almost forgot about it, I used to get it all the time. I hadn't had it once since I was home on maternity leave. As my stress worsens, the pain extends upward. If it gets bad, it goes into my neck. If it gets to my head, things are really bad, and I need to disengage from whatever I'm doing. So, it's just in my shoulder blade, which is good. It's bad because it hurts, but it's good because it's not expanding. I don't have to go anywhere tomorrow, so I'll just relax and hang out with my boys.

Working hard or hardly working?

Today is my first day of gainful self employment. Although technically it was yesterday, because I did 2.5 hours of work to finish up a presentation draft. Such is the life of the independent contractor.

I'm in the process of setting up my own company. I am using a third party company to facilitate the setup process, and my paperwork is being processed by the state right now. Within the next week or so, I should be an official business owner!

I need to start referring to my ex-boss and company as my "client". It's weird, since I was an employee there for ten years. They are letting me keep my laptop for the time being (i.e. indefinitely borrow), since it has all of my files, etc. That is nice, one business expense I can put off until a later date. I am going to pick up a copy of QuickBooks to keep track of everything, print invoices, quotes, etc.

Holding my breath and jumping feet first

I am making a HUGE change in my life. For the last ten years, I've been working full time as a mechanical engineer. I now have two small children, and the toll of working full time, commuting, and being too exhausted to spend quality time with my children was too much.

Last week, I submitted my resignation to my boss.

This week, I am in the process of starting my own engineering consulting company. My goal is to have about 16 hours of work per week. My boss from my current job is willing to contract me work for about that amount, and I already have a project lined up. My first official day of being self-employed is Monday February 27th.

I'm not very good at accepting change, and this was a tough, but I believe worthwhile decision. I will now be able to be home raising my kids, but still have some technical work in my life.

Self portrait

I have no good pictures of me. I'm usually the one taking pictures, so there are very few pictures of me as there is. I'm going to work on creating a self portrait, a picture that I'd be happy to share, and not be all embarrased about how my hair looks, etc.

What does heaven mean to you?

From 52 Figments for 2/5/06

This is a tough question for me. I've always had issues with my spirituality, and I don't have a firm vision of heaven. When I was little I didn't believe in god, or any other religious dogma. I do believe in something now, but I'm sure it's not the mainstream belief. Heaven could be a place or a state of mind. The Buddhists consider achieving Nirvana to be a form of heaven. I watched that Barbara Walters special a while back on heaven, and that really didn't help my thinking either. Some people have such a rigid idea of what religion and heaven is, and that bothers me.

Heaven is a state of perpetual bliss, I don't know if it's a mental place or a physical place.

Money is no object and your safety is guaranteed....Where do you want to go?

From 52 Figments...

I'd like to go on a grand historical tour of the Mediterranean. I'd love to visit Egypt and sail down the Nile River, see ancient sites in Turkey, Greece, Italy, the Middle East, etc. These are the places that our civilization came from, and I am facinated by these sights. I've always had an interest in religious historical places, although I'm not particularly religious myself.

Another part of me would like to build an ocean front home in Kauai, Hawaii, and live in paradise.

2006 - The Year of the Change

I've made an agreement with myself to make some changes in my life this year. Most of the changes have to do with having "too much" in my life, usually bad things, like stress and clutter. The biggest change for this year is that I am leaving my job as a mechanical engineer to be a stay-at-home mom. I am hoping to continue doing some consulting work for my company on a limited basis to retain some income and keep my skills up, but the most important thing for me is to be home raising my kids.

I was spending up to 3 hours a day in my car. I realized that I was spending more time in the car with my son than I was spending time at home with him during the week. With the birth of my second boy, I knew things had to change, or I would be horribly stressed out just trying to get out of the house in the morning, never mind trying to get a full day of work in.

Here's a short list of the changes that I intend to work on this year:

Spend more time raising my children
Reduce work stress in my life
Pare down the clutter in my life
Be more creative

This blog is where I'll document my experiences, progress and results.