I first read Angie Mizzell’s work (Not So Supermom creator) over on Hybrid Mom, which lead me to Angie’s personal blog, Under the Mac. Finding Angie’s work has been really exciting for me, because I’m always on the search for more moms that seem to be in similar situations to me. Moms who combine work and motherhood in whatever forms because it’s my reality – not because I think it’s a bad thing to be a mom who doesn’t work (hey, to each her own you know!)

Speaking of Supermoms, yesterday my friend told me I was a fabulous mom, when I complained that I was missing my baby – my sister had kindly taken him for the day/night while I helped out on a field trip for my kindergartener. I had asked her to take him for the day, but was going to pick him up after school. Considering she lives an hour away, my sis said just leave him till morning, it’ll be fun! But I missed him even though he is loud and busy and always needs something. You’d think I’d appreciate the break more! Fabulous mom? I don’t know about that – I yell too often and I don’t feed them enough vegetables. I sure do love them though.

Thankfully it’s now the morning after and I’m going to set aside any work to do this afternoon – after I pick up my little guy. Best part of being a self-employed wahm, my schedule is sort-of mostly up to me!

This summer, I have a week long vacation planned in July and I’m torn about whether to work during my vacation. I never work full-time hours anyway, and this is a pretty relaxed  type of vacation. We’re driving about twelve hours away, staying in a cabin and doing some camping type activities. Finding an hour or two each day to work won’t really be a problem, but if I end up with a heavy workload I might be sorry! And lately I have been actually billing 2-3 hours most days (and “working” more than that obviously) so I need to really think about how to handle vacation this year. I am hopeful that next year it will be even more of an issue, as strange as that sounds, because it will mean my little business has continued to grow!

So far this is definitely one of the biggest challenges I have faced as a work at home mom. There are two concerns: one is that I love being there for my clients when they need me. It makes me feel useful and appreciated! Second is that I like money. Yup, money, I admit it, and I make money by working – not just by owning a business! So what should I do? Work, or limit drastically what I do during vacation time? Any advice appreciated!

Weather be damned though, I’m still hoping to get ready to plant my garden this week. Good thing half of it is started inside and waiting just to be transplanted or it would never have enough time to grow before summer is over. We’re planting tomatoes, herbs, potatoes, peas, cucumbers, carrots and a few other things. I love having garden produce, plus it makes me actually spend a little time outside weeding most days, instead of constantly being stuck to my lovely laptop.

Anyway, back to the long weekend. Today is a holiday in Canada, it’s Victoria Day. My kids asked me what the holiday was about and all I could say was that as Canadians we celebrate the Queen’s birthday. Mostly, we’re just happy for a day off! But I don’t really take the day off. Many of my clients aren’t even Canadian and since it’s not a particularly important holiday, I don’t mind doing a couple of small projects on it.

I do find it funny though how often Canadian holidays seem just slightly off of holidays in the US. Of course some are similar, even if they don’t celebrate it, most people I work with seem to slow down over the Christmas/New Year break. In May we take the 3rd Monday as a holiday for Victoria Day, but in the US the May holiday is the 4th Monday (Memorial Day). In July, each of our countries observes a patriotic celebration, but ours is July 1 for Canada Day while the US has Independence Day on July 4. Each just enough off to be worthy of mentioning if it will pose a conflict for cross-border working relationships. The most noticeable difference though is at Thanksgiving which we celebrate on a Monday in October, but the US celebrates on a Thursday in November!

Well, it is officially a holiday here and my boys are busily playing the new Super Mario Galaxy 2 beside me, so I better get those projects done so I can have my turn at the game. With the lovely weather (ahem!) it was a nice of DH to pick the game up first thing yesterday so we could enjoy some family time together indoors!

Eventually we adjusted to the school bus thing, working out a deal where I drove him to and from school on Fridays. I was lucky enough to make it work the last couple of months before starting my maternity leave, and I’ve never gone back to employment (outside of the home) since. I kept him going on the bus other than Fridays though, because it was less disruptive to my day, especially with the baby taking afternoon naps.

This year my middle child started kindergarten. He also takes the school bus and the Friday deal is still in place. Overall, it’s an arrangement that works pretty well, at least for me. When the kids take the bus they leave at 7:55 am and return at 3:45 pm. When I drive we leave at 8:15 and I have to be back at the school for pick up at 3:05 pm. Having them take the bus gives me almost an extra hour in my day it seems, and since the littlest still often naps in the afternoon, it’s convenient for him too.

Here’s where the dilemma part comes in though. We live in what is considered an urban bus route and we pay a small fee for the service. Well, this year, and past years, the fee has been not too bad anyway. We paid $200 this year for both kids to take the bus for the whole year. Next year though? They are doubling the fee – so my fee would be $400, for essentially taking the bus less than 200 days a year. I don’t really want to start getting myself out of the door to get them to school, partially because I prefer to stay in my pj’s and partially because I like to be at my desk working at 8 for a couple of hours while baby is still in the mood to self-entertain. My husband thinks it’s a waste of $400 to send them on the bus and they would definitely prefer to get a ride every day.

What’s a wahm to do? Suck it up and deal with the daily drop-off and pick-up game (also made not fun by traffic and plenty of bad weather) or spend the money to keep things the way I like them? Decisions, decisions….

The joyous experience of chicken pox is basically over now thank goodness, although both of my littler boys still have marked up skin that I understand will take quite some time to fully fade.

I’ve also been spending Tuesday mornings this month at the dentist, first for a cleaning and then for fillings. I still have one more appt in a couple of weeks. Moral of that story? Floss regularly and visit the dentist more often. Don’t be like me and take your kids to the dentist but neglect yourself. I like my “me time” to be about lattes, spas or at least a good book, but sometimes you really do have to take better care of your health apparently.

And last, but definitely not least, my VLA work has been picking up this past month. It’s great and I’m actually feeling the most inspired about what I do that I have in a while. I had a really wonderful compliment from a client about how much help I am to her law practice and I realize that while there are days that it’s hard, or days when I am worried I don’t have enough work to make a decent living at this wahm thing, long-term this IS going to be worth it. In fact, I’m even planning a marketing campaign so I can really ramp up by fall. Assuming I find some new childcare anyway – but that’s another story for another day!

Other than blogging, and twitter, I have actually been fitting in everything that needs to be fit in. There have been a few late nights, but that’s par for the course as a wahm I think.  And this weekend I’m treating myself to a break. My best friend and I are heading out of town for a little spa-cation. We’re just going to Red Deer, less than two hours away, because I am not a fan of long drives. Plus it’s cheaper! We’re staying in a cute little hotel (I hope it’s as cute as it looks on the net…I really, really hope!) getting massages and pedicures, doing homemade facials and probably drinking a fair bit of wine. I can’t wait, only 4 more sleeps to go…..

Dr. Google lead me to believe that possibly 5yo had chicken pox, but I wasn’t sure, especially since he was immunized fully against chickenpox. Anyway, the nurse at the hospital (we don’t have a medicentre in my town, so I went to community hospital for advice) says looks like chicken pox to her, but wait and see the doctor. A couple of hours later the doctor gives us the vague diagnosis of “viral rash”. She says it could be chicken pox but probably not, the sores don’t look “blistery” enough.

Fast forward to this weekend. Two year old is now sick. He ends up with exact same rash/sores as 5yo had – only difference being that he has way more of them and a high fever for three days or so. Pretty huh?

Today 2yo had a dermatologist appointment for a problem on his scalp – it was a suspected cyst, but now they think bacterial infection. While there the derm could not help noticing the lovely rash on his face and chest and evaluated it for us. The junior and senior derm had quite the discussion but ultimately decided it most likely is in fact chicken pox, passed on from the 5yo, despite the 5yo having being immunized (2yo is NOT immunized yet). They even asked to take pictures of it seeing as they see less in the way of chicken pox these days!

Not surprisingly a sick 2yo has wreaked havoc with my schedule the last few days. He hasn’t been sleeping, so neither have I. And when he’s awake he’s been clingy and needy – I was back to typing with a child on my lap. It reminded me of the nursing days, but he’s much bigger now! It was not easy and I’m glad he seems to be on the mend as of today. The fever is gone and the only problem now is the itching and the need to catch up on some sleep. I sure hope tonight is better – I need to get on track tomorrow!

Spring break has actually been a lot of fun so far actually. It’s only half over and we’ve already gone swimming and bowling, as well as on a nice long walk one day. So long my legs hurt the whole next day – no wonder my 5yo needed a piggyback ride from dad on the way home!

Of course, as often happens in such times, my work has picked up a little this week. Overall, that is a fabulous thing – I love helping my clients! But it has been interesting planning outings and such knowing that I have to fit the work in too. We almost went on a daytrip to Calgary, but my work and my cold helped us to reconsider that idea. Things probably won’t stay that busy with the holiday weekend looming though, so I’m going to enjoy the upswing while it’s here. And while my husband is here to help take over the kids as needed!

Okay, off to get some sleep before another busy day. I’m spending most of it with my sister and grandma, as they are coming this way for a medical appt for my gram. My handy little netbook is going to get put to use while gram is in her appointment and then we’re going to have lunch together before heading home. Then I think a movie might be the activity of the evening with the kids – How to Train Your Dragon. Hopefully 2yo will actually sit still enough for me to see some of the movie.

We signed up for a family Easter activity at Fort Edmonton Park that we know all three of the boys will just love, and at only $22 for our whole family, it’s an affordable thing to do. Spring also means “break-up” in the oil industry, a term any non-Albertans may not know, but basically it means my husband may work infrequently or not at all until mid June or so. Fun right? We plan for it, but still need to be extra frugal through this period.

We also are going to spend one afternoon swimming at our local pool, try to teach 5yo to ride his bike without training wheels and go on a picnic/trail walk one day. We may even make a day trip to Calgary (to go to the zoo or just shopping!) one day, but that’s a we’ll see kind of thing.

And how am I going to keep up with my work through all this fun? Well, each morning I’ll spend an hour or two working on projects for sure – when it’s not spring break I sometimes procrastinate until the baby is napping before really getting down to business with my work. I’ll also have my netbook with me for most activities  in case something urgent crops up and of course, as always, the hours after bedtime will be a prime work opportunity!

Wish me luck!

Household wise, my 5yo got a significant rash last week and I was worried about chicken pox, so that added some chaos. He was so itchy he could barely sleep the first day, which of course means I couldn’t sleep, so we had a cranky household on Saturday. The doctor suspected it was just a random viral rash, not chicken pox, but still recommended he stay out of school a couple of days, so I had to rearrange my usual child-free Tuesday to Thursday. Which means I’m REALLY looking forward to tomorrow, lol.

I’m grateful that my work at home business allows me the flexibility to make these changes though. It’s nice to have that kind of control over my schedule, and I had no trouble getting work done around the 5yo, it just wasn’t the quiet I crave on a Tuesday. I count down to that peaceful day every week!

My grandma was on the younger side for a grandma, my mom was pretty young when she had me (18), and my grandma didn’t have her until her mid-thirties, putting her at about 50-ish when I was born. She was born in 1923, the first of her parent’s children to be born in Canada, instead of England. She was the first daughter two, having two older brothers born before the family immigrated. Several more siblings were born after.

My grandmother married my grandfather when she was 19. He was in his mid-thirties then and while I have pleasant memories of him, they mostly are of watching the Price is Right with him or eating breakfast together! My grandfather passed away when I was 9 or so. Since then, my grandmother has had quite the interesting life. She went skydiving for the first time when she was over 60. She loves being active and has pursued hobbies such as dancing, golfing and hunting all since becoming a senior citizen. She’s 87 now and still an amazing personality!

Her life has not always been easy. She lived in Edmonton until she was 10, then during the Depression they re-settled into rural Alberta. After my grandfather passed away she reconnected with a childhood love and re-married for the first time. Yep – the first time! Bob was sick even when they married and passed away within a year or so. Then she lived with Andrew – he was so nice. Andrew was her hunting partner as well as her boyfriend. Unfortunately Andrew passed away after a few years together. That’s when the story really gets soap opera-ish. My grandma met Andrew’s brother only after his passing. It turns out the brother had 40+ years before had an affair with Andrew’s wife. A child was born and knowingly raised as Andrew’s, an agreement having been made that the child would not be told the truth until Andrew’s death. My grandmother loved that child as another son of her own. But still it was many, many years since the incident and she didn’t view the brother as a bad man. Actually, she fell in love with him and he became husband #2. And the son became her son, again, in a weird deja vu.

Unfortunately the brother also eventually succumbed to cancer. Then eventually Grandma met her next long-term boyfriend. And he died too. Then her next and the same horrible result. It’s not easy to find and keep love when you are a senior. Today was actually the funeral for her most recent boyfriend. She was so sad, and I’m glad I was able to spend Saturday afternoon with her.

To end my Memory Lane Monday post, I’m leaving you with a picture of my grandmother from way back:

Happy Monday everyone!