When we bought our new house last October, one of the things I adored about it was the space for a home office. It’s a nice size room in an awkward space for any other use – that is to say, pretty much the perfect space for a home office. Just a little private from the main flow of the house. Naturally, its first use was to store all the stuff we didn’t have a place for right away when we moved in. But no more. I have it pretty much cleaned out, and the first piece of furniture in.

The first piece of furniture isn’t office furniture as such, however. It’s a futon, because this room will also be a guest room. Not often, but family circumstances dictated that I make it ready as a guest room even before I buy a desk and get it in there, because it may be needed for a guest soon. But the futon folds up into a rather nice couch, and so I can use the room itself as intended while we don’t have company.

Yesterday was the first day I was able to do that, and it was wonderful! My husband wasn’t feeling well after a blood draw at a doctor appointment, so he left work early and came home. I arrived home from grocery shopping, and there he was in the living room, sitting on the couch watching a movie. He offered to turn it off, but I pointed out that my office was now a perfectly good option for me.

The futon isn’t the perfect solution for my office, but I have plans to buy a standing desk soon. I even think I know which one – the price is great, and the company even has an office less than 10 miles from me, which was a big shock. Usually nothing is close to me except maybe the grocery store.

Still, I was able to work pretty well in there. A door to close really does help with distractions, which I have known for a long time. Before, the bedroom was my only choice if I needed to close my door, and that’s just not as good as a dedicated office space.

With summer vacation not all that far off, I really have to get this office set up the rest of the way. My desk will take some time to arrive, but it looks as though I’ll be able to pick it up rather than pay for delivery, which is wonderful. Here’s hoping I can have a really productive summer in my new home office!

The post I Can Finally Use My New Home Office appeared first on Home with the Kids Blog.

These past couple months have been difficult, although in a very good way. We bought a house at last! It was quite the process and really took away from my working time, but we’re finally settled enough that I can really start trying to get into a routine again.

Buying a home when you run a home business has its own challenges. We had to do so much more paperwork on my income compared to my husband’s, as he has a nice, stable job with predictable income. Fortunately, my income has been better than his for the past couple years, and I could prove it. Still, it’s extremely distracting to keep getting calls asking for new information or updated records.

Then there’s packing. Tedious and time consuming packing. Being at home, I did quite a bit of it, despite my husband’s protests that I shouldn’t take so much time off my work hours. If I hadn’t, we would not have moved on schedule, and I knew it.

We’ve been in the new house about two weeks now, and we finally only rarely have to go digging for the box that has something important. There’s still a lot to do, but the important things are mostly where they belong. Unpacking is mostly more fun than packing – it’s so nice to find your stuff again. So far, the only thing missing is the power cord to the television, but fortunately, it takes a standard computer power cord, and we had a spare from an old computer.

We’re enjoying the layout of the new house. The kids think it’s pretty interesting getting to park in the back of the house – that’s where the garages are. I’m happy about my new office space – there’s one room kind of tucked oddly away downstairs that will do great. I haven’t had a dedicated office where I could close the door before. I still need to find a desk for it, but that will come.

I’ll still be organizing this new house for some time to come – most say it takes them months to really get settled, but I’m so glad to be where I can work a reasonable amount again at last. I really haven’t enjoyed only being able to do a minimum of work to keep things functioning.

The post Working at Home and Moving – a Difficult Combination appeared first on Home with the Kids Blog.

We’re in the new house and settling in bit by bit at last. It’s been quite the long process, but I’m finally working my way toward being able to work regularly again.

With a wireless internet connection, no less! I’m loving it, if only because it means we don’t have to run cables all through the house. The only cable outlets are in the master bedroom and the family room, and a straight run of cable to my office from the family room would have taken at least 20 feet without doing nice things like running over doorways rather than across the carpet.

I’m still in heavy unpacking mode. Found my keyboard 3 days ago, which encouraged me to go shopping for the wireless router and wireless USB adapter my computer needed. Set those up the next day. It went well overall, considering that it was my first time setting up a wireless network.

And spent a lot of time going through all the emails, etc. I’d missed in the time I’d been offline.

Much of my time has been spent unpacking and dealing with the kids. The older two love this house! Two stories and nearly twice the size of the old one we were renting. What’s not to love?

I’ll just gloss over the notion that this house, built in 2006 (think prime housing boom) was built way too fast and sloppy. There are door frames warping already on the way to the back yard.

There’s just so much to do! Address changes. Unpacking. Getting the kids registered for school.

And lovely, lovely hiking. We’ve just walked around the neighborhood so far, but Yucaipa has mountains all around. Should be fun.

We’re trying to do nightly family walks. Lots of hills here, so it’s pretty good exercise. I may yet naturally drop the weight from this last pregnancy.

My focus is not yet entirely on business, or even partially on business in a lot of ways. I’m posting now because I had meant to get back to work sooner, but there’s so much that needs doing.

Including sleeping. That one’s a little rough at times with a 6 month old, but I do try to fit a little sleep in once in a while.

The post Moved In, Unpacking, But Finally Able to Work a Little! appeared first on Home with the Kids Blog.

Moving is hard on children, especially when they’re leaving their friends. It’s been interesting with this move seeing how each of my kids reacts.

My oldest is the most upset. She has the most friends, after all. She finally broke down the other night, crying, and talked about her concerns.

Fortunately, she quickly got to the point where she realized that she might just love our new home. If my husband can get a transfer back to the San Diego area when he’s qualified in a year, we might just do that, and she realized that she would probably be sad to leave her new friends.

My son is insisting that he’s not sad about it, but is decidedly fussier right now. Pretty typical stressed out four year old kind of behaviors.

And of course the baby just knows that she wants Mommy’s attention. She’s too young to know more than that I’m busier than usual and don’t play as much as she’d like.

For the older two, we’ve been talking to them a lot about why we’re moving and what they can expect. It really helped my oldest when we told her about all the kids we saw in the neighborhood just driving around.  Definitely a nice young neighborhood, which will help.

We’re also driving her nuts by giving her just about any detail about the house except whether it’s one or two story. She badly wants a two story home, so we’re keeping that as a surprise for her. It makes her mad, but should make her first sight of the new home very exciting.

We’re lucky to have local, retired grandparents to take the kids. I’m trying to have them gone most of this week, as we have a lot of stuff packed up. They really hate being told “sorry, that toy has been packed already.” Much better for them to be having fun with grandparents than to be underfoot all day.

They have helped with some of the packing, plus some toy sorting for things that they’re willing to get rid of. It’s a great time for getting rid of at least some of the excess toys!

Letting the kids be involved can slow things down tremendously, but it also helps them. It’s not just something that Mommy and Daddy are doing. It’s something the family is doing together.

The post Helping My Kids Cope with the Move appeared first on Home with the Kids Blog.

Working at home can be chaotic. Working at home while trying to move, even more so.

That’s what I’ve been working on lately. There’s absolutely no doubt that it has cut massively into my “working on my home business” schedule. Drives me nuts.

It’s not just the time loss. It’s being extra tired. Trying to figure out some way to have fun with the kids, who are of course concerned about the move and really want more time.

We’re moving because my husband got a job in San Bernardino. We’re quite delighted about that, even though we had really hoped for the San Diego office so we could stay where we are. It’s not easy to leave a house you’ve lived in for 4 years, raising your children and having another baby.

Much of the move has fallen on my shoulders. My husband has to be at work all week, so he can’t handle a lot of the stuff that needs doing during the week. He’s simply not available. Thank goodness for willing grandparents and a very helpful older sister who lives closer than we do to my husband’s new job. She and her husband have been so patient with having my husband there every weeknight, plus my kids playing with her daughter when I need to do stuff up that way.

I’m lucky that way.

Like everything else in home business and much of life, it comes down to planning.

1. Figure out the times that you’ll be working versus house/apartment hunting, packing, etc.

The balance here depends on how fast the move needs to go. We decided to be optimists about finding a place to rent, and gave notice to our current landlord pretty quickly. We even made it work. We’ll be out in plenty of time.

The faster you want to move, the more you need to tilt the balance toward finding a place to live and packing to get there.

Expect to lose some working days entirely. There have been plenty of days where I just have not had the energy to deal with anything beyond what it took to find a new place to live.

If you have clients, make sure they know you’re moving, and work with their needs as much as possible, even hiring someone else if need be to do the work you can’t get done due to your move. A virtual assistant for yourself may be a good idea too.

2. Pay attention to what you can live without for a while, versus what should be packed last.

You don’t want to pack away anything to do with your home business until you’re ready to have no access to it. For me, that means my computer stays out as long as possible.

Pack as neatly as possible, with all boxes labeled so that you can get organized again as soon as possible in your new home. If you aren’t in a big rush, this can also be a great time to declutter and get rid of all those papers that build up over time.

Now is a very good time to back up your computer. You hope nothing will happen to it on the move, but stuff happens. Better to be prepared.

I do this regularly anyhow. I have an external hard drive that backs up my files at night. Big, big help. They’re really quite affordable these days, especially when you consider the cost of losing all your files.

3. Check the rules for home business at your new home.

Don’t commit to anything until you’re sure that your home business won’t be a problem. If you’re entirely online, it really shouldn’t be a problem. However, if you ever have clients come to your home, there may be issues. You need to be sure that you can still run your business wherever you go.

Sometimes you’ll need a business license, sometimes a home occupation permit, sometimes a Fictitious Business Name or a DBA. Requirements vary quite a bit. Know what you need so you can keep your business legit.

4. Get your utilities and internet service hooked up in plenty of time at the new place.

How much in advance you need to take care of this depends on where you’re moving to and what kind of internet service you need. When my sister moved she got FIOS, which had a two week lead time on it. Other services can be turned on more or less same day.

5. Plan the layout of your new home.

This isn’t just for your home business. It’s for entire family. With luck, you’ll be able to dedicate a room as a home office. Maybe it will even have a door!

My home office at our new home will be pretty much like what I have now, that is to say a room that is still a part of the main body of the house, no door. We’re planning on having it be my office as well as the play area for the baby (she still needs to be near me, after all), plus have my husband’s computer in it and a homework place for my daughter. It’s a bigger room than we have for all of that right now, though, which will be nice.

Planning things a little in advance of the actual move helps when you’re moving. It’s nice to be able to put the boxes in the room they belong in, rather than in a big stack as you debate when you get there.

6. Keep planning your unpacking around your home business.

The move doesn’t stop when all the boxes and furniture are in your new home. It doesn’t even stop when you have the everyday basics set up.

Unpacking can be quite the process, and it too will interfere with your home business. You don’t want to be living out of boxes forever. At the same time, you may be quite eager to get your business running again. When you love what you do, it’s hard to ignore it once you’re sufficiently comfortable in your new situation.

But you do need to get the unpacking done too. It can be quite frustrating dealing with the little issues caused by having this and that packed away.

Work on the unpacking at a rate you and your family can tolerate. How fast that needs to be is a pretty personal decision. But I don’t recommend taking months and months to get the job done.

The idea, after all, is to get settled so that the move is no longer interfering with your ability to work your home business and enjoy your family. Once it’s all out of the way you’ll be glad it’s done.

The post How to Plan a Move Around Your Home Business appeared first on Home with the Kids Blog.

This has been kind of fun. I’ve been using Craigslist to find home rental listings, and they often have a link to Google Maps to see where the home is.

When you go to the map, most also have a link to Google Street View. It’s fun because it’s a slight preview of the neighborhood. I get a good look at the house, can go up and down the street and see something of what the neighborhood looks like.

It’s not a strong impression, not quite like being there, but it’s not a bad place to start. It’s easier to tell on Street View than from satellite photos is the neighborhood is seriously run down or on the newer side.

There’s still a lot more than that to picking a good place. I still need to check out the schools and really see the neighborhoods. But the extra impression of the area is nice to have.

The post Using Google Street View to Check Out Home Listings appeared first on Home with the Kids Blog.

Guess what? I hate moving. Really. It’s a pain and gets in the way of more interesting things.

Sure I’ll be glad to be in a new home, and new places are fun once you get there. I just don’t like the process it takes to do that.

Especially when it takes away from my work time and means I don’t have my husband at home. Neither of those is good for my state of mind, which some say is pretty crazy to begin with.

But for now, when we don’t know just how soon we’ll be moving, I think I have some parts under decent control.

Parenting’s tough, of course, but that’s a balance I have to deal with all the time anyhow. The lack of any sort of relief or help is hard, but not so bad, as I’ve said before.

Packing I try to do for about an hour a day, getting all the stuff we don’t need for daily life put in boxes.

I’m a little shorter on sleep than usual too. That’s because I keep staying up trying to get things done while I have complete peace and quiet, and no one waiting for me to go to bed. After all, baby’s going to wake me up whenever she needs me anyhow.

I’m trying not to overdo that part. Went to bed at a more normal hour last night, which I think helped some.

The hardest part has been house hunting. It’s hard to do that alone, or rather, from a distance and even with relatives willing to watch the kids so I can look faster. A part of that is just being comfortable where I am right now. It’s a nice neighborhood and we have lots of friends. Not the easiest thing to give up, considering how long it took us to really settle in here in the first place.

The post Juggling the Move, Family, Working at Home and My Sanity appeared first on Home with the Kids Blog.

Things are going to be really busy around our house the next few weeks or so. My husband just got offered a new job, so we’re going to be moving soon, as it’s about two hours north of where we live now and he’s just not crazy enough to force that kind of commute on himself.

I am so not looking forward to it. I hate moving. Love being done with it, though.

On the other hand, this is the furthest from pregnant I’ve been on a move since we got married. Every other move I’ve been either pregnant or within 4 months of having had a baby. By the time we actually move, Selene should be about 5 months old, so that’s a record for me!

He’ll be working for the state in the unemployment office… which, by the way, is currently doing a ton of hiring. If you know someone who might be interested and is in California, send them to the State Personnel Board website and take the online test. Working for the state can be a pain some ways, especially with the furlough days, but it has its good side too. Sadly, I think unemployment is California’s one growth industry at the moment. I hope that changes soon.

We’re still waiting to see if the local office will take him instead, but when you have a bird in the hand, why beat around the bush?

He’s starting next week. They wanted him to start tomorrow, but he wanted to give his current employer just a bit more notice. Obviously we can’t get the move done that fast, but it gives us a bit of time to start planning.

I’ll still be posting as time allows, but I’ll be going easier on myself. I have a post coming up tomorrow for a really interesting home party opportunity, and of course I’ll be writing whenever I’m not packing. I get really fidgety if I spend too much time away from my work – it’s just too much fun!

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