Mothering Many

Well, I’ve gone and done it now, folks. With summer coming and the kids out of school, I’ve asked to be off another day per week from work. Now, by work, we all know I mean paid work, right? Because there will certainly be work to do here. The children will be gone to their dad every other week, and I plan to use that time to finish getting my house in order, among other things.

The most pressing of those other things is the increasing of my income. Now, it mean seem contrary to say I’m going to be off another day and I still want to make more money, but I think if I am diligent about working online and getting my blogs back up to where they ought to be, I can generate enough revenue from that to justify staying home. I am also planning to look into freelance work and re-opening my custom yarn dyeing business.

As of now, I have no investments made for my own future or to help my kids with what they may need as they get older. So that’s something else I need to look at–not just enough to make it for now, but enough money to be able to set aside a little at a time for future use. I know nothing about the financial market, and so I am likely to go with savings bonds or precious metals. These only go up in value and the initial investment can be pretty low. And gold is pretty to look at, so it appeals to the girly me much more than paper assets.

I’m not the only one who feels that way, of course. You all know that the ancients were pretty fascinated with it, too, both as a personal decoration and as a way to preserve wealth. I was reading today about gold and how it is cast and the difference between coins and ingots. Coins have a currency value, and that’s the major difference. What I didn’t realize was how rapidly the market fluctuates. I was curious to know how much it would cost to buy gold eagle coins, so I could compare it more accurately to a savings bond, but the United States Gold Bureau site said to call for up to the minute pricing. I’m not yet ready to invest, so I didn’t call, but I am keeping it in mind.

So, some pretty exciting times just ahead for me. I’m looking forward to spending more time at home. I’ve wanted to be back here pretty much since I left. I just hope I can remain as focused as my children did during the school year. They did some awesome things and made me very proud, but that is the subject of several more posts, LOL!

So, I knew I had a large family. And I know we like to eat. But I just prepped an order for pizza, and it came to seventy bucks! Seriously? But after three days of no running water, we are out of plates, out of silverware, out of clean pots and out of food we can cook without water. The good news is that we should have the plumbing fixed tonight. In the meantime, I’m looking at laying out a chunk of change for dinner, and wondering if it’s ok to give appetite suppressants to growing kids.

JUST KIDDING!

Well, apparently my kids like the idea of me being home a second weekday each week, and so after talking to a couple of my trusted advisors, I am taking the plunge. At least through the summer, I will be home on Thursday as well as Tuesdays. Now I need to find some good, cheap fun for us!

I’ve got the cheap health insurance covered, so gimme some good suggestions. And if it involves water, so much the better. We’re in the South. It’s hot. Miserably hot. Already, and it’s not even June yet!

Today, I did something I haven’t done in a while. I got up and got the kids off to school, and instead of going back to bed, I made coffee and stayed up. And I have gotten so much done today!!! Not that you can look at the house and tell it so much, but I did other stuff that I’ve been needing to get to: crackberry updates, photo organizing, planning, thinking.

I’m looking at ways to increase my income while being home more. Nothing like selling online life insurance, but more like using the skills I have and doing the things I enjoy for money. And being able to be there for my kids more, because by the time I get home from my clockpunch job, I am wiped out. Seriously unable to give them much of me at all, and I hate that. Absolutely hate it.

And also, I should stay up every day. *emphatic nod*

And by “that”, I am referring to baseball season. The kids had a lot of fun, and so did I, and several of them want to play again next year. Stuntman even wants back on the diamonds for “fall ball”. We’ll see.

For now, I am looking at a few weeks of catching up and re-organizing. Putting the kids in public school last fall was a wham-bam exercise that I never managed to get real organized for, so I plan to get all that set up over the summer. Already, I have moved the school uniforms to a central location in the laundry area, so we no longer have to do a search and destroy mission to get the kids out of the door each morning. Yay me, for oh-so-belatedly getting a clue! Next up, shoes and backpacks.

Lately, I have been playing games again with my younger kids. Back into the world of I Spy Snap and Othello we go. It’s fun to play with the younger set, a totally different experience from hanging with the set who are asking about acne solutions.

You know, as I reach the point where I’m about to move a kid out every couple of years, I am more and more grateful for my large family. It will take a long time for my nest to empty. Maybe by the time it happens, I’ll actually be ready. But I doubt it. Just sayin’

I am sure a lot of you know this already, and I am sure my own parents got tired of it, too, but…..I am going to mention it anyway, because I pay for this domain, and I can. You know what I hate about my home phone? When it rings, it’s for one of the teens. And do you know what I hate about my doorbell? Same thing.

Of course, I have a cell phone that only rings for me, and MY friends just call from the driveway and I come to the door to greet them, but still. I’m mentioning it anyway, because I pay for this domain, and I can. Muhahahahhhahhaahahaha

Not. I have nothing good to say, except that we all had fun camping this weekend. At least, the kids tell me they had fun. I’d never be able to tell from their jolly little faces and pleasant attitudes. I do have a question, however. Can I get an insurance quote on my sanity, because it is surely about to depart from me? Also, another question. If you have successfully raised teenaged daughters, and by that I mean they are now reasonably successful (and you can define success as you’d like), productive members of society, not incarcerated and able to take responsibility for at least part of their of their decisions and choices, and you did not have to beat them with a baseball bat to knock some sense into them, how did you achieve that goal?

Just kidding about the bat part. Really.

You know, there are some times that really make you wonder if anything you have ever said to your kids has been heard. I’m at one of those stages with at least one of my kids right now. This has got to be the hardest part of the motherhood job. Getting up four times a night was a cakewalk. Watching them skin their knee was tough, but endurable. Now the end of active, hands on parenting is within sight for a couple of them and the stakes are incredibly high, and I am just hoping I haven’t utterly failed. Somebody tell me again that if you train up a child in the way he should go, when he is old he will not depart from it. And do detours count?

Hope you didn’t come here to get happy this evening.

Does this new development mean I am going to have to research the best wrinkle treatment? What about new hair color with even more grey coverage? Cause I had plenty of grey before this. Just sayin’

And we might also need extra soda and some snack foods. At least more popcorn, so I can enjoy it while I watch the drama unfold. Maybe with ranch sprinkle stuff. Muhahahahahahahahaha