Sunday, February 1, 2015

Flexibility is not overrated!

So lately, and for the foreseeable future, I have been working 32 hours a week at my off home job.  The extra money has been nice I must say.  My concern is weather I will be able to keep up with a garden and such once the season starts.  But until then, I was pretty Okay with the hours.  Then I started missing the things I get to do working fewer hours; sewing, baking, gardening, etc.  As my wonderfully wise sister states, " those things are a part of what I am".  I couldn't have said it better myself.  I agreed with sis so much I went the other day to tell my boss that in 6 weeks I really wanted to go back to my part time hours since I knew the extended hours were only temporary.  Then she said the reason she needed to speak to me was to tell me she had received approval for my  hours to be 32 a week from now on.  Possibly eventually 40 a week (full time)if we keep growing.  So now caught between a rock and a hard place, I had a decision to make.  Dh said he was fine with any decision I would make.  He says, and I agree, there are benefits to both.  So I thought, and thought, and prayed, and thought.......get the picture?  Poor Dh has patiently been listening to me work this out for the last few days.  I realize I am blessed beyond measure.  In an economy where many can't find a job, or can't find a full time job, and here I am wondering about increasing my hours.  I must say getting totally out of debt before the year is out is an awesome incentive.  So armed with that incentive as well as the knowledge of things needing repair around the homestead, I  reached a decision yesterday.  I am going to work the extra hours, and whenever she needs me to work.   I can't give up on all of my homey things either, so I am streamlining the process.  I have to cut minutes and seconds off my time here.  I don't want the weekends to be a crazy catch up kind of day.  I plan to still garden, but smaller and smarter.  I will have blueberries and blackberries coming in regardless of what I work so that will stay the same.  The veggie garden, however, is a different story.  Things will be planted that we use the most of; i.e tomatoes, green beans, corn, sweet potatoes, lettuce and spinach. All of these items are easy to pick and put up, especially if I am only needing to freeze corn on the cobb.  Yum.   Bread will still be made, but I have ordered a programmable bread machine to make the dough.  Not a big fan of bread baked in a bread machine, but it is a nice convenience to be able to put the ingredients in the bread machine in the morning before work and let the machine do the dough.  I will come home, knead the dough a little more, let it rise and bake it on my own.  This will also help with Friday night pizza since I can put the pizza crust in the machine and have it ready for topping and baking when I get home.  The "Guys" are off from school on Friday and have been picking up the slack housekeeping wise.  Still not sure if my plans will work once gardening season is in full swing, but with everyone helping we have a fighting chance. The extra hours will allow us to rapidly get out of the rest of the debt we owe.  It isn't much, we will hopefully have our car paid off 5 months early, and our last credit card, hopefully buy the end of the year.  That only works if I can keep costs at home down.  We will see.

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