No More Missed Holidays
My mother held a belated Easter Egg Hunt at her house this weekend, and it’s the first time the entire family has all been together in I don’t know how long! It seems like there is never a holiday anymore that everyone can attend. Including my parents, our family includes twelve adults and nine children under the age of eight, and as you can imagine, getting all of us together under one roof at the same time can be very difficult.
Every time I turn around, I find another benefit to working from home. Of the twelve adults in our family
, two are self-employed in the construction industry, one is in the flooring industry, one is a nurse, one is a counselor, one owns his own auto detailing company, two are in insurance, one is a restaurant manager, two are homemakers, and one owns a home-based business. Half of the twelve are either not working or are self-employed, and the only ones who never miss a holiday are the two homemakers and me! Even this weekend, my brother who owns the detailing company couldn’t come until halfway through the party, and he came right from work!
Well, everyone had a great time, the kids all behaved wonderfully, and I’m thankful that we could all be together for a change. It’s just another bit of proof that working from home is the best decision I’ve ever made.
April 19th, 2009 at 4:20 pm
Sounds like a really fun time with your family – I can just picture the little ones running around searching for treasure! Hope you had good weather!
April 19th, 2009 at 5:52 pm
Carla, I know what you mean about missing important holidays! I worked in an industry all my life that kept me and my husband from spending holidays with family. Some customer oriented businesses work 24/7 no matter what. I cannot believe I spent 21 years of my life missing those important dates. Had I been smarter or had a Womens Entrepreneurial Network mentor me I could have already developed a home based business with financial security allowing me to take whatever day off I needed or wanted. Women who take control of their own lives for financial security at any level have given themselves the freedom to choose any day is a holiday!!!!!!!
April 19th, 2009 at 9:37 pm
Carla, I know exactly what you mean. Missing holidays and other important family events is one of the worst things about working for someone else. I am so happy that I found the Women’s Dream Team and am able to make my own schedule.
April 20th, 2009 at 9:11 pm
My family is all over the western hemisphere,you could say. My Mom and stepdad live in Florida, my youngest sister lives in Nicaragua,and my next-youngest sister and I both live in PA. In late May,for the first time since Mom retired to FL a decade ago,all three of us girls will be able to travel together to visit her! If I wasn’t working from home,with this home business for women, the coordinating of all our schedules would be next to impossible! Now I can have this kind of flexibility! Hooray!
April 20th, 2009 at 10:33 pm
It is so wonderful to be able to give your kids the gift of knowing their cousins. I come from a large extended family and value the fact that I have 70 people I could call in a heart beat if I needed help. I would never have had that if my parents missed the holidays!
April 20th, 2009 at 10:38 pm
I can completely identify with you! For 29 years, I worked for a company that dictated my days and hours. I missed many a softball game and school function along with being the late one to various family functions. I finally chucked it all and work from home now on my own terms with my own hours and can stop and attend to any family work or play that needs attention. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE IT! Hope you enjoyed your time with your family…I know I sure do (now that I get to.)
April 20th, 2009 at 10:43 pm
Cindy! I hope you GIRLS have a fantastic time!
That’s awesome Melissa! I’m jealous of you for having so many family members close by to call on.
In all the years I worked in restaurants, I always felt like the holidays belonged to everyone else. In fact, it always made for a nightmarish work situation. Busy! Busy! Busy! Now that I work from home – you can bet I do an extra big Happy Dance at being able to fully enjoy what a holiday can mean for me and mine. Bring on the Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, Grand-parents! I love it!!!
April 21st, 2009 at 8:59 am
Thanks,Anna!
Here’s a little postscript: My Mom doesn’t know that my middle sister,Pam,is coming…we’re going to try to surprise her. She thinks just the oldest,me, and the youngest,Bonnie, are coming! We’ve been there in two’s before,but never all 3 at once! LOL! I’ll let you know how that goes!
April 21st, 2009 at 9:54 am
I don’t know her but I bet anything there will be tears of joy flowing! What an awesome surprise. You guys are great daughters to give her such a precious gift.
April 23rd, 2009 at 12:51 pm
I guess I am somewhat spoiled, because I grew up in a paradise, namely Hawaii, and I also traveled a lot when I was young. I lived in Bangkok, Thailand for a year and a half, and I traveled to Khatmandu in Nepal, HongKong, Greece and Rome. Still, though, I have the wanderlust.
But, with all of the turbulence going on overseas, I have been reluctant to travel again. And now, of course, with the economy the way it is, I haven’t even been able to consider it.
I own a small, little business that was growing in leaps and bounds before the fuel crisis burst onto the scene, followed by the severely dipping economy. Needless to say, like so many others, my little company took a nosedive and sent me reeling financially.
Also, like so many others, I began looking in earnest for work. I sent out resume after resume, and it seemed they were all just going down a big, dark hole. Wait! I received an email asking for my presence at an interview! Wow! I attended only to find that there were 25 other suits there waiting to be interviewed for the same position. Of course, there is ALWAYS someone else in a group like that that has a resume that is more targeted to the position. So, yup, I didn’t get the position.
Then, one day, I responded to an ad and found myself on a very compelling web site that invited me to a business overview. What was intriguing to me about it was that, though it was a business overview, it required no selling and no ownership or deliveries of inventory. Since my own little business required the stocking of inventory, this little tidbit of information grabbed my attention.
I attended the overview, and I liked what I heard. Now, I am once again my own boss, and I am looking forward to soon being able to pay for multiple trips wherever I want to go. Hmmm. I think I will visit with my son and his family in Atlanta before I go to see my sister in Fort Worth and then my brother and my friends back home in Hawaii. What do you think? Is that a great idea or WHAT?
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