Now What?

OK I have hit rock bottom or should I say rock boredom. It took 10 months but I have officially become b-o-r-e-d. Want to know what I did yesterday? I alphabetized all of our DVD's. Something which, granted, needed to be done, it was so annoying trying to find anything - but this little project basically justified my existence for the day. Not cool.

I suppose anybody who is reading this already knows that I am among the ranks of the Unemployed (hence the title of the blog) and yes, I - we - my husband and I that is - are choosing that I remain as such. And so far, this decision has been a-o.k. with me.

I have mastered getting to various sports practices on time WITH all the necessary equipment...my older son Max runs cross country so as long as he has some form of footwear on we're pretty much set. Flag football for 6 year old Charlie is another story. You've got a mouthpiece, water bottle, cleats, football pants, practice shirt - and he's supposed to wear a cup but since it came up to his belly button we figured he'd be all right without it for this season, anyway. Anyway the point is - a lot of stuff. Hard to get right. Tom (said husband) and I once sent him to a FLAG FOOTBALL practice without his FLAGS. Swift. But that's in the past, now I can get it all together - plus some trail mix for snack - with my eyes closed. Very helpful now that the season is over.

I am happy to report that I have a house that is almost always presentable and I really don't ever fall behind on the laundry. It took me almost 20 years of living on my own to figure out that if you do a little bit at a time, you don't have to clean for hours and hours and waste an entire day. I certainly don't like doing it any more than I used to but being around to get it done sure does take the edge off of the hate.

I am around for homework and I make sure my kids get it done as soon as they come home from school. I provide help and yes, "motivation" when necessary. ("You will not TOUCH that Playstation OR the computer until this is done - correctly AND neatly!" I have boys, you have to add "neatly" to those kinds of statements)

I exercise almost every morning. I either run or walk, almost always with a dog or two. I used to go with all three at once but that got a little out of hand once Ollie, the puppy, got big and really, really strong and apparently impervious to the pain of the medieval torture spiked collar we use to walk him. I scared the pants off some lady and her dog one morning when walking all three of mine and as we passed each other, all three started barking at her like they were going to tear out her - and her dog's - throats. Lovely. We'll have no more of that. But Junior is usually my running dog. Because he never poops, well - not out on our runs, anyway. I'm sure he poops at other times. So the non-stop, totally forward-motion he's got is a plus. The other two get walked. Lately Ollie gets to go on the trails I found in the woods. I took Minnie to the trails once, she kept running too far away. I think perhaps she was trying to escape the insanity of our household, she's not really a "people" dog. Come to think of it she's not really "another dog" dog either - she's pretty much just pissed off at almost everyone except my father. It's very strange.

I cook a lot now. And I am pretty good at it. Simple stuff, anyway. Leave the fancy dishes for Tom - I'm all about beef stew, turkey chili, quesadillas, baked ziti - you get my drift. Anything my kids will eat with gusto. The dishes may not come off the pages of Food and Wine (in fact often times they come off the pages of the Wookie Cookie cookbook) but at least they are homemade. When I was working it was not rare for me to throw bowls of Coco Krispies (which were not homemade, in case you were wondering) at my children for dinner while I continued to bang out emails and review piles and piles of galley proofs that awaited my approval before they could be submitted to clients. My "work from home" job turned out to be more work than any "work at the office" job could ever EVER be.

And I shudder to think of those days and I can safely say that I do not ever want to go back to that.

But honestly, taxiing kids to sports events, cleaning, cooking and dare I say alphabetizing (I did all of the fiction books in our library and the spice rack prior to tackling the DVD's) have become a bit mundane. These things used to be a huge challenge for me because they were so very different than what I did on a daily basis. But now...not so much. I still like exercising, I just wish it worked better.

So - I suppose this all finally brings me to my point - this blog. I need an outlet. I need to know if there are any of you out there that are going through the same things - or going through anything remotely similar. Or something completely different, I don't care - just let me know! I honestly don't know what I'm doing or what I'm going to say on any on-going basis but my guess is that it will largely revolve around me, a former Vice President and Director of a company, finding myself as the New Suzy Homemaker. And how this Suzy Homemaker position is waaaay harder than any VP/Director job could possibly be.

It could get interesting...