Home Sweet Home...

Yes! Home is sweet, it's where I want to be...and where I will get to be...more! After many, many years of working, from full time to part time when I became a mom, I now will be working out of the home only very minimally...one day a week!!! I am so happy, and feel so blessed! My entire work week will be cut in half from 20 hrs a week, to only 10. Working 20 hrs. per week doesn't seem like much to a lot of people, but when I stopped to think about it, I was away at work 80 hrs. a month! That's a lot of time to be away from my sweet girls, and for us, it was just too much. Since we homeschool, I really need to be home as much as possible to do a good job of that. Not only was I gone 80 hrs. per month at work, but I am also away from home at other times too, doing things like working out, shopping, meeting with friends, bible studies, etc. So, I really needed to evaluate what was most important. This definately comes with some sacrifices, but I am willing to sacrifice for more time at home raising my children. The closer I got to knowing that this is what I was supposed to be doing, the more things were thrown at me to try to get me off track. The first was a big raise in pay. This doesn't just happen every day. In fact, I have never had it happen before, but because there is such a high need for Occupational therapists, physical therapists, and speech pathologists in almost any setting these days, my employer thought they better do something to make us stick around. In this field you get recruitment calls, and mail asking you to come and work for them on a weekly basis! Sometimes with large sign on bonuses, even! Then, a few months later, I got a 2nd raise! What?? Here I am wanting to basically not work much at all, and I am tempted by two raises in a matter of months?! This just doesn't happen. It was tempting...and I really thought about all that I could bring in if I worked a 40 hr. week like many parents do. But, I continued to pray about it, and with the blessing of my husband, decided that working less was best, best for all of us. Financially, it will be harder, and sacrificies and cutbacks in many areas will be made. We have managed on two part time paychecks for 7 yrs, so I know we can continue. I feel very much at peace with this decision. I want to be the best mom and wife I can be, and to do that I really need to make family, and home my main priority, and be able to devote all the time I can to this awesome job God has given me!!

In my next post, I will talk about some of the things we do to live a simple, yet very full life on a pretty small budget. I have so many ideas and projects going, and I hope to share! I also need to fill everyone in on the foster/adopt journey we are on, and what has been happening there, as well as give some updates on Lilyann, my baby who will already be two years old in a matter of weeks!!! For now, I leave you with this quote;

"A hundred years from now it will not matter what my bank account was, what sort of house I lived in, or the kind of car I drove...but the world may be different because I was important in the life of a child."

~Anonymous