At Home

I have heard about pregnancy parking but I only saw it for the first time last Saturday when Murray and I went to Best Buy. I made him back up the car and go back to the Kinder Parking spot that I saw because gosh dang it, if life was going to offer me an excuse to use specialized parking, I was going to use it. And then I made Murray take my picture. While an old woman drove past and scowled.

I had a friend who used pregnancy parking before she was showing and people would give her dirty looks. But seriously, you could be really really sick with your pregnancy before you even start to show. The sign does not restrict the parker's stage of pregnancy. And even though it's true that I feel so good that it's hard to believe I'm pregnant (and could therefore park in normal parking), it was right before store closing anyway, so I figured that all the uncomfortably pregnant women out there would probably be at home instead of making late-evening trips to Best Buy.

And now for something completely unrelated. In the past couple of weeks, a few people have asked me how it is to not work. I don't think that everyone really understands what it is I'm trying to do here. I didn't leave my job to be able to sit at home and eat bon bons all day. When I say that I'm working at home, that's actually what I'm doing. (Of course, I'm blogging right now, but I'm allowing myself that break because I'll probably be working till 9:00 or 9:30 tonight.) I don't do laundry, as evidenced by the piles of clothing in my house. I don't read books. I don't go out to play. I don't take long breaks. I actually sit at my desk typically from 8:30 to 5:00 every day, and most of the time, I'm caught up enough in what I'm doing that it's a pretty big inconvenience to stop and eat, but for the baby's sake, I go downstairs, heat up some leftovers, and bring them back upstairs to eat in front of my work.

Last week I put in over 40 hours. I guest blogged over on petit elefant. I worked on and finished a large (and well paying) project that I'd been working on for two weeks. I made a custom design for an adoption announcement, and printed it. I prepared and taught an Illustrator lesson for my Illustrator 102 class. I answered several emails from my students, helping them through their problems. I quoted a potential client on a proposed project.

I didn't get the mockups done for the website that I need to put together to become a legitimate designer. That gets pushed over to this week, which, by the way, is another busy and productive week with important clients, important deadlines, and an all-day Illustrator seminar class on Saturday. AND I probably won't be taking off Pioneer Day because I'm just. that. busy.

Which is how I want things to be right now.

But which is also why I might be just a little bit insulted if you ask me what it's like not to work.

Ask me how I enjoy not commuting, on the other hand, and I'll tell you what it feels like to get 10 hours of sleep a night (for the baby's sake) and never wake up to an alarm. It's wonderful.