This morning I was awake exceedingly early. I think when the wind blows outside I get restless. So rather than having my husband drag the covers off me at 10 am and telling me to get up repeatedly, I was out of bed like a shot at 7:30 am after laying there awake for who knows how long.
Great chance to get some things done, right? Not that lucky. Restless me putters aimlessly until now, shortly before 9:30 am, before I really settle in to get anything done. So I figured I would write a blog post. After all blog posts don’t take a lot of time and it won’t be long before James wakes up and wanders in sleepily, looking for hugs, attention and food. Yes, I am talking about my husband. I have managed to teach him how to crack an egg, so mostly he just wants company during breakfast.
And I sit and marvel at the blessings of being self-employed. To have time to share three meals a day with your husband and to be able to take time and savor those meals; to have a conversation and find out how things are going with each other.
Just the other day at dinner I was saying to James that there was something of a paradox about our social calendar. I said: “I don’t feel like we get out and socialize that much with people since we started being self-employed and yet our calendar is constantly full.” In fact, we get together with friends several times a week, which I never had the energy for back when I was an employee. Talking about it we came up with the reason behind the feeling: We don’t go to jobs anymore where we have to socialize with our co-workers.
So there is no longer a 40 hour a week forced socialization period and this is giving me that false sense that we socialize less now than we used to. I say false because, I don’t know about you but, about 90% of the time I would never have chosen to socialize with the people I worked with. Even worse, some of the people I was trapped with, for that long 40 hours a week, I could not stand to be around. If you are one of my former co-workers and you are reading this–yes you were in the top 10% that I liked 
Part of that was probably because, when in an office or work situation, many people will behave in ways that make them unlikeable. Even I, the most agreeable person in the world, was probably on occasion hard to work with. The best thing about my home office is: I don’t have to be here! Its completely my choice. At some point work has to get done or the income will suffer but I could put it off, for hours or days or weeks if I wanted to, and I could do it in a different place if I wanted to.
On a gorgeous day I can take my work outside if I want. On those days when James just can’t stop muttering to himself about his own work, and I need to concentrate on something, I can grab my laptop and head into another room. On those days when I just can’t get in the right frame of mind to get anything done I can just skip a day.
Its both a blessing and a challenge to have such time freedom. I handle it now better than I might have a few decades ago. Perhaps it was my very long University career which taught me the discipline to get things done in a timely fashion. Somehow the work always gets done. Even amidst all the playing hooky to read books or play golf and all the sleeping in past 10 am.
Speaking of 10 am it’s looking like its my turn to drag the covers off the bed and say: “Out of bed sleepy head!”
