You know, being a SAHM has been an adjustment – as anyone who’s done it can tell you.  No matter what preparation you do or what you might have been doing before, it’s still a bit of a shock to the system. There have been ups and there have been downs, but all in all I’d gotten pretty comfortable with the SAH gig.  However, now that I’m moving into the 13th month (pause for creepy foreshadowing) I find I’m grappling with… unexpected jealousy.  Despite that I’m very happy being at home, I admit… I’m a little jealous of those who go to a job every day. 

I’m not jealous of the hours, the commute, or the endless meetings.  I’m not jealous of the consistent adult conversation or having some place to go every day in clean, grown-up clothes.  And I’m certainly not jealous of (horror) the office politics.  No. 

I’m jealous of the blog time.   

See, I’ve been working from home part time for the last few months. And it’s been tough, I gotta tell you.  The nature of being at home with a baby/toddler, whether you are working, hobbying, domestically engineering or otherwise, is the definition of interruption.  Every moment is mutable; chaos is like that annoying playmate who just won’t leave.  The parenting doesn’t change – the time, the attention – those are fixed.  So the few bloody hours (usually in 15 minute increments) I squeeze from the stone of parenthood are divvied up between whatever personal pursuits I got going.  And in my house, this has developed as a direct inverse proportion between work and blogging.  (Luckily, eating, bathing, sleeping, and TV are necessities so those are also fixed occurrences.  Sex… ain’t so lucky lately.)  If I’m working on a project, blog time goes down.  If work is light, blog time goes up.  Sure I’m getting money, but I still lose time reading my people, damnit!

The way I figure it, working in an office not only gives you unlimited access to the internet, it also gives you a certain amount of quiet time (meetings are always good for tuning people out); time for thoughtful reflection on a post, time to find your words… i.e. no little person hanging on your leg just as you’re scrambling to leave a blog comment!  And let’s face it, when I worked in an office, probably about ten minutes of every hour was spent in the bathroom, getting coffee, chatting over the cube wall, or other “break-like” activities… and that could be ten minutes of blogging, my friends!  (And those of you blogging at work, don’t pretend you’re not doing it.  I see the comments popping up 9-5.)

So yes, I’m a little jealous.  I miss my blog buddies.  I hate the guilt that accumulates when I’ve neglected my reading.  I hate missing out on visiting all the great new blogs ‘cause of time constraints.  Oh and, you know how there’s always that one person who pops up in your stat counter and apparently stayed on your blog for, like, FIVE HOURS before making a comment, throwing your stats all off?  Yeah, that’s probably me.  (sorry)

There you have it.  That’s when I knew how addicted I had become, the moment I considered* going back to an (shudder) office… for the blogging.      

               – the weirdgirl

(*It ain’t happening.)