The big question....

The question that I've heard the most over the past few days:

"What are you going to do?"

Hmmmm.. that's part of the beauty of this. I'm 35 years old and I gave youth a good attempt complete with awkward adolecense. I gave college the good ol' college try and didn't do too badly. I've had a very successful career for the past 13 years.. This May would have been my 10th anniversary at my current company. I don't regret this decision in the slightest. I'm not afraid that we're going to wind up on food stamps or living on the street. Benji will continue to be the best dressed kid on the block (complete with nail polish of his chosen color).. all we're talking about here people is a little change. People do it all the time. Not people in my family.. but people.. trust me.. it's healthy.

"What am I going to do?"

Well.. we've got a lot of things to do right now.. I have about a month or so to finish up at the office. Since the type of work I did wasn't exactly 9 to 5 and since I managed my own projects.. there's a lot to do to move responsibilities around. I will probably spend most of most weekends between now and the end of March at work trying to tie up loose ends; finish up projects that can be finished and pass on projects that are more long term.

We're also looking for a new apartment or house. We've basically decided on an apartment for the next few years even though it sure would be nice to be paying into equity instead of paying someone else's mortgage.. while we have money to put down on a house, there are better uses for that money.. like as a buffer given that we need to adjust to living on one-ish income.

Looking for a new apartment is more challenging than it sounds because we now have a preschooler and need to find a town with a school system that we like just in case we're there when Benji starts kindergarten or when he gets into their special ed. program for his speech if that's determined to be a good idea. Finding a place in our price range is one concern of course.. but we're more concerned with finding a place with a yard for Ben to play in and a safe neighborhood (Arlington is grand.. it's yuppieville.. with the exception of the 2 registered level 3 sex offenders living within 3 blocks of our current house).. we're picky. we want a dog. We want to be out of the city.. but not so far out that Shiel can't have a reasonable commute (albeit by train.. but a train with wifi is a special train indeed).

We need to pack. If nothing else, my work schedule ending before our lease ends allows me some time to do some hard core packing.. and I'm sure Benji will be a great help.. *laff* We have to be careful.. the last time we moved, we packed a cat.

At least we don't have to move Orca this time. Orca was (may he rest in peace) our 14" long goldfish who needed to be moved from Malden to Arlington.. we rented a car for that one.. I'm sure they were trying to figure out the fishie smell for quite some time.

We have already gotten a year's membership to the Children's Museum in Boston.. can't wait to spend lots of mornings exploring and climbing and playing with friends.

We will get Benji going in the Boys and Girls club so he can continue with swimming lessons and gymnastics and fun stuff like that.

We are planning to trade in our car for something with a slightly more reasonable car payment with a slightly more reasonable gas milage. This is especially desirable since I tore the front bumper off during last weeks snow storm. (I'll have to post a photo).

I plan to continue blogging. I've gotten more, emotionally, out of blogging for the past few weeks than a year of therapy has given me.. this is good. As long as I keep being honest with myself and use this as a forum to air my thoughts and be open to the communities response.

The big change.. the one that has my mom in a cold sweat.. is that i'll be moving from being a "working mom" to a "stay at home mom" for a period of time. This is not a scary thing. I'm more worried about all the phone calls we have to make to change over our contact information and getting utilities turned on and off with a move than I am about the transition to being a SAHM (stay at home mom). Benji will be starting Kindergarten in a few years.. time is limited. Before I know it, he will be in high school.. I don't want to miss this time when we've worked so hard to be in a position to be able to do this financially. Will we be going on European vacations? hell no.. but we weren't doing that anyway since we've been relatively strapped while paying for the sky high rent in the city and the sky high daycare/preschool in the city. We have thought this out.. a LOT. No reason to worry mom.. this was planned.

What else will I do? Well.. I'd like to find things that I enjoy again.. I haven't touched my guitars in years. We have a beautiful piano (two, if you count the one at Grandma Jaaym's in Texas).. we have a child who is drawn to musical instruments.

Let me pause to say that I love Apolo Anton Ohno.

I also hope to do some writing. I've started a children's book. I have ideas for a short story. It's something I've always enjoyed but have never taken the time to do. Now.. the funny part is that being a stay at home mom is going to take so much of my time and energy that I'll probably be blogging about how i can't find time to write.. we'll see.

In the short term.. I'm going to work on Shiela's birthday present. I'm going to go to Verizon Wireless tomorrow to say a lot of dirty words for them selling me a phone that can't take video messages. I'm also going to register for the March for Babies walk for the March of Dimes.

Given that I've spent the past 3 years in full panic mode about dealing with my job and feeling like I'm missing out on everything in my only child's childhood.. and hobbies have included staring at Shiela at the end of the evening before we crash in exhaustion and complaining about how we are too stressed to enjoy anything.

This is a good thing.