Communication with your family is one of the most important parts of working at home. Without it, expectations are not made clear and resentment can build. It’s something you should start out when you decide to work from home, and repeat as necessary.

A big part of the work at home talk involves getting everyone in your household to agree on how seriously to treat your work. If you’re going more for a hobby than a serious income your family should know this. But if your family will be relying on your income to get by they need to know to treat your work that seriously.

What About Housework?

Many work at home parents still try to do it all. Keep a perfect house as they run a business or work at their job. This is incredibly stressful and makes it harder to succeed at home.

A certain degree of chaos can make working at home much saner. Talk with your family about what you can tolerate in terms of mess. For example many families will want to stick with having dishes done promptly, but may be able to stand vacuuming less often.

Consider also the division of labor. Are the kids doing reasonable chores for their ages? Are both parents doing their share of housecleaning if both are working, even though one is at home more? Read the rest of this entry »

Keeping up with children’s needs is difficult, especially when it comes to keeping up with their clothing needs. It only gets harder as they get older and pickier. What does it take to save money so that shopping for your kids doesn’t completely do in your budget?

A lot of it depends on your children’s ages and clothing preferences.

Infants and Toddlers

This is in many ways the easiest age, if also the most tempting for dressing them up cute. Most parents end up with far too many clothes for their kids at this age. They’re so easy to buy for and the clothing is often just so cute.

If you had a baby shower, take a good look at what you really have for your baby before you start buying. You may not need that much. Keep doing this as your kids grow and you fail to realize just how many clothes they have received as birthday presents or at other times.

It’s also a great time for shopping thrift and resale shops. An amazing amount of infant and toddler clothing makes into such places unworn or so close to it you’d scarcely notice the difference. The savings can be a real delight. Read the rest of this entry »

Ok, so not really. Gage came out of his room this morning wearing a cape, and my husband decided to tuck it in for him. So all morning Gage played “Superman” and has been running around the house, cape flapping. He came back to me every time the cape came loose.

[tags]kids,superman,cape[/tags]

Yes, I counted and I got a total of 13 things for my birthday from my husband and kids the other day.

5 jars for storing things in the kitchen. I asked for these.
3 science fiction novels.
3 Toblerone bars.
1 bag Ghiradelli 72% cacao chocolate.
1 set copper measuring spoons. My 2-1/2 year old son picked these. When my husband took him shopping, they caught his eye and nothing else would do. Kid would just not put them down. I guess the question now is… who really gets to use them?

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I hear from moms desperate to work at home pretty regularly. Sometimes they badly need a job so that they can continue to support their families. They want to know how to get a fast start working at home.

The first thing I always tell such people is that if you cannot support your family, get a job. Any job that will pay enough, even if it’s outside the home. You may have to struggle and figure out who can watch the kids while you work, but do what you must to support your family. Finding a work at home job should be secondary to finding a way to support your family.

I also tell them the simple truth. It takes most people a long time to find legitimate work at home that is sufficient to support a family. It’s just tough out there.

But I Really Want to Work from Home!

Once you have things going well enough that you can afford to spend some time on finding the right job or opportunity to do from home, you are in a much better position to make it all work. It’s time to start figuring out what it is you want to do.

The first thing to do is figure out if you are after a work from home job or a home business. It makes a difference. The jobs are harder to get, but it is generally harder to earn from a business, since there is no guarantee that you will be paid for your efforts in a business.

You also need to figure out what it is you want to do. What kind of job do you want or what sort of home business do you want to research?

Read the rest of this entry »

[tags]wordless wednesday[/tags]

Well, for a few minutes, anyhow. They were just slurry sealing our street. Gage loves trucks of any kind. He heard the truck coming for the first round and just started hollering “Truck, TRUUUUUCK!”

Of course, they didn’t get started until noon, despite wanting all cars off the street by 7 am. Theoretically, that included for driving, although  obviously that wasn’t going to be enforced. Now that the slurry has to dry, we’ll see how long until they open the street.

I have a little challenge at lunchtime – my daughter loathes peanut butter. Really and truly cannot stand it. She doesn’t like most nuts, in fact.

So there goes a classic kids’ lunch. It doesn’t help that my son would gladly live on peanut butter.

Today we came up with a compromise. She got a jelly sandwich, which she adores but I hate to make because they aren’t all that nutritious (although I do use wheat bread). But she also had to have some lunch meat. I buy the healthier kinds, not just bologna. She’s happy. I’m happy that she’s getting something healthy along with her sandwich.

The kids are also enjoying fresh tomatoes from the garden.

I’d love to hear how other parents handle lunchtime challenges. What do you like to serve your kids for lunch and how do you cope with difficult food preferences?

[tags]kids,lunch,peanut butter,sandwiches[/tags]

Aggie tagged me.

The Rules:
“Each person links to the person who tagged them. Then each person posts the rules before their list, then they list 8 things about themselves. At the end of the post, that person tags and links to 8 other people and then visits those peoples’ sites and comments letting them know that they have been tagged, and to come read the post, so they know what they have to do.”

1. I love making homemade bread. Matter of fact, I have a loaf and 8 rolls rising right now. Probably done by the time you read this. It’s whole wheat bread and really easy to make.
2. My husband and I share a car. Some of you may remember that from when we got rid of my car early this year. Still going amazingly well. Some things are just not so hard as you might expect. I do miss the flexibility of having my own car, though.
3. I’ve been trying to talk my husband into moving to another state. California is just too expensive. He wants to return, but I pointed out to him that we can stop renting and start building equity sooner if we live elsewhere. We’re thinking Colorado.
4. I’m very quiet in real life. With all the speech issues we’ve had with my son, we joke that he comes by it naturally, through me! He and I are both very shy. Hopefully I can help him deal with it well.
5. I’m considering taking up quilting. My sister is going to check out prices so that we could maybe take classes together.
6. I don’t need glasses or contacts yet.
7. Chocolate is my favorite food group. Especially chocolate in the 70-75% cacao range.
8. I enjoy these memes, but picking new victims… err… choosing people to tag drives me up the wall.

I’ll tag:

No Average Mom
The Happy Slob
One Stop Mom
Gaia Girl

And anyone who wants to volunteer. Picking 8 is taking too long.

[tags]wordless wednesday[/tags]