I may be self employed and primarily work from home, but this is still a job. Especially in the beginning, that can be hard to remember. it's a job that has no sick time, no paid vacations, no weekends, and no insurance. I love it still! Yet some mornings, I can't help but think it was easier when I was punching the clock and had someone else making sure I got everything done. When I first made the move to business ownership, it took me a few months to actually become productive. In fact, I would sleep til noon, stumble out of bed and stare at the computer doing a bunch of nothing for a few hours, play with the kids, make dinner, then tell myself to get to work but decide it was too late to bother. That wasn't going to pay the bills for long! So I started treating self employment like a job. True, a job that gave me infinite freedom, but a job none the less. It takes awhile to develop self discipline, and I literally clocked in on a sheet of paper for a month to track my time in the beginning. I clocked in again on Wednesday so I could show you what my typical day looks like.
8:00am- fall out of bed. Grope for the alarm and hit snooze, crawl back into bed.
8:05am- Alarm goes off, oldest son bangs on door saying his lunch isn't packed. Stumble out of bed into kitchen.
8:10- Drink a cup of tea while searching the fridge for the lunch meat I know I bought yesterday. Find it and make lunch.
8:15am- Speed shower since I overslept and didn't make lunch yesterday.
8:30am- Diret traffic as everyone wakes up while trying to find clean socks in the laundry basket I didn't fold on Monday.
8:45- Take my son to school.
9:00- Fire up the computer and munch on a bowl of cereal while checking email and such.
9:45- Toddler wakes up. Get him breakfast and leave him alone. He is a bear in the morning. It will be a good hour before he will allow anyone within a 5 foot radius of the couch.
10:00- pour a batch of earrings. Manage to spill resin all over my table. Thats why it is covered in a dollar store shower curtain, as this occurs more often than I like to admit.
10:30- due to spilled resin, finish batch quicker than usual. Toddler is still yelling at anyone nearby so check the forums.
12:00pm-Check the forums and email again. respond to a convo. Check some blogs I follow.
12:45- realize I haven't done my daily marketing. update project wonderful, renew craigslist ad, update Flickr.
1:15- Toddler declare "ein hungery!" realize I am too, so we have lunch and watch Fireman Sam.
1:40-Toddler busy playing with his trucks. I take this opportunity to start sanding yesterdays cast.
2:00- bored with sanding, pop into forums.
2:45- Bored with forums. Start printing up earing cards.
3:05- Oldest son comes in from school. Make him a snack while he unloads backpack.
3:15- go back to sanding.
3:30- bored wit sanding again. Start adding findings to what is already sanded.
3:45- Check email and forums again.
3:55- Go help son with homework. Toddler is asleep surrounded by vehicles of all kinds.
4:00-sanding!
4:30-Three more to sand. Decide to take a break. Wander around the house wondering what to do.
4:15- Decide to finish pricing stuff for an upcoming show.
5:00-Done pricing, check forums.
5:15- Finish sanding.
5:45- Son comes into work room looking spiffy in his Cub Scout uniform. Crap! Put on shoes and get him into car in record time.
7:00- back from Cub Scouts. Throw a frozen pizza in the oven and get some salad mix in bowls. go back to office to check email. Respond to convo.
7:20- Dinner time!
7:45- Get kids in bath and finally fold laundry.
8:30- hang out on the couch with the husband and kids.
9:00- put kids to bed and watch Ghost Hunters with husband.
10:00- start messing around on computer then realize the only thing I didn't get done was pictures. get everything set up then find out the camera batteries are dead. Put them in to charge overnight.
10:30- mess around online.
11:45- go to bed.
I waste a lot of time! I also get (almost) everything done. I could say I work long hours, but really I have a lot of play time too. And I can stop work to play dinosaurs whenever I feel like it!
My sons show table
BITE ME Dino by Boogerbearcreations
It is made of painted foam core, dowels for the hangers, and a heavy wood base to keep it stable. The "rice paper" is actually thin plastic sheeting. It has dowels running up between the layers of foam core and through the base. Eventually, I would like to make one out of wood when I have the time. This version only cost about $5!
Here's a sampling of this weekends cast. Can you tell which one was a demo of my new design, to see how the resin worked with it?
This is a view gong into the office. It is this itsy bitsy room with no closets and one tiny window.
Here is the window! He gave it to me :) My sewing machine, obviously . I have a pair of thread snips attached to the table, an idea I got from the sewing tips thread on Etsy.
The other half of my work table with computer and postage scale. The table is extra long, though not very wide. He made it by placing two left over wood planks from when we made our garden beds on top of my plastic drawers. I then covered it with a dollar store vinyl shower curtain. The blue tub sitting on the floor has completed items in it. It is numbered and I keep a list with what is in it in my file. Once full it will be moved into our garage and another will take it's place. It works well and everything is already packed for a craft fair.
Storage shelves. The bottom shelf is all Mr. Kioko's stuff. The middle shelf has a cardboard box full of his stuff and a gray tote that has my works in progress in it. Next to the cardboard box is an accordion file with all my patterns in it. The next shelf up has three totes full of my son's card making stuff and my craft books and notebooks. Top has printer paper, Mr. Kioko's concertina, son's funky paper scissors, and Mr. Kioko's lap harp.
Mr. Kioko's workspace. This room is tiny but it will work for now. Much better than the kitchen table! There is no room for all my fabric so that is still on the shelves in our storage room/pantry. (We have this giant closet off the kitchen.) I will also still have to cut fabric on the kitchen table, but since I only have one or two cutting days a week that's not so bad. Now I just need to find a chair so I can take this lawn chair back to the patio ;)
