Life Work Balance

Moon rising - Escalante, Utah

Earlier I looked at the clock, and it was 7 pm. And I was sitting down with Paul to eat dinner. That I had just cooked - tomato tortilla soup. And I thought...this is so nice. In my previous life in DC many, many nights at 7 pm I was just leaving the office. I spent so much time commuting to and from the office - around 1.5-2 hours a day. And then I typically worked far more than 8 hour days. I love to cook, but in DC I often got home too late and too tired to think about cooking dinner. Now I work from home, so no time spent getting dressed up to go to the office, no time commuting. It is beautiful. And now that I am only working  half-time, I have to keep track of my hours. When I was a full time employee I just never seemed able to cut it off at 40 hours. Now, only being paid half of what I earned before, I am very conscious to not work more than what I am getting paid. It is tough to do in my line of work, but it is possible if you really work at it. Right now I have increased my hours due to a new project starting up, but even that is ok because I am just here at home and I can do all of my work, do things around the house, goof off on Facebook, and still have time to try a new recipe for dinner. With my husband. I get to spend time with him. Which is so important. And was so tough to do in my past life.

I feel very grateful that I have been able to make this move and these changes in my life.