Blessing in disguise

About three months ago, I was let go from a part-time web job I had kept on the side for over a decade. As you can imagine, the timing wasn’t all that great as The Girl had just arrived and losing any sort of income, no matter how small, was not welcome news.

Now you may ask yourself, “What kind of company dumps an employee after 13 years with absolutely no notice, just a month after the birth of his child?” The answer, of course, is a company that’s extremely cheap and that views employees as just another expense to be minimized. But I digress.

At first, I was pretty worried about our budget for a while. Having two kids in day care this summer won’t be cheap and gas isn’t getting any cheaper. We do a good job about saving where we can and not making frivolous purchases, but you know… kids gotta eat, mortgages need to be paid and The Wife needs a new pair of gray pants for work (and possibly shoes to match) each month.

Fortunately, our day care has agreed to allow us to pay for The Boy on a week-by-week basis over the summer. With both sets of grandparents just a couple of hours away, we’ve set up a schedule that will allow us to basically save half off of his daycare costs until he starts kindergarten in the fall. So that’s good. I’m no longer quite as worried about the cash flow. Sure, we’ll have to watch our spending, but that’s something we should be doing anyway I suppose.

The real change has been in the amount of time I have in the evenings now. For the first time in my life, I only have one job. And it’s Monday through Friday during normal working hours. It’s absolutely fantastic.

When I had that second job, it meant I sat back down at the computer for more work after dinner each night. I had to stay up late and sacrifice weekends to get projects done. I had to worry about scheduling my vacations around my side job because there was no one else to back me up. Plus, during most of that time, my “day job” generally had pretty crappy hours too.

But no more. I get off at five and don’t work on the weekends. When I come home in the evenings, I can make dinner, spend time with my kids, and then – and this is a first for me since junior high – watch television with The Wife or read a book or do whatever I want. I’ve even started playing Nintendo again over the past couple of weeks.

It’s amazing what some free time will do for you. I can let the dishes sit until after The Boy goes to bed and spend extra time playing with him. I can go to teeball games without having to stay up until midnight to catch up afterwards. I can sit on the couch and just hold my daughter. I can go to sleep at 8:30 if I want. I can leave the computer off (and often do, much to the detriment of this blog – sorry) and just be a normal, unplugged person. It’s like discovering another four hours in each day.

So, while money is always good, I’ve decided that maintaining my sanity and spending time with my family is better.

(And on a cattily satisfying side note, that company has completely screwed up the site I created for them since shoving me out the door. It’s always sad to see your work get destroyed, but at least I’ve got copies of my work for the ol’ resumé. They have to live with their “cost-efficient solution”.)

Fries at the bottom of the bag

• The Boy and I attended two parties on Saturday. Much bowling and wagon-riding were had by all. And in case you’re wondering, five-year olds don’t roll the ball down the lane very fast.
• There’s no doubt about it. Between the drooling and the chewing, it’s clear that teething has begun for The Girl.
• For the first time ever, I am actually leading a fantasy baseball league and have been for almost a week now. Too bad it’s only May and two of my big guys just went down with injuries.
• I understand that processing video can take a while, but check out the wait time I got on Vimeo the other day while doing some work. Also, once you get above the first 120 minutes, you might want to start breaking it down by hours instead of minutes.
• After several months of peace, my arch-nemesis was seen buzzing past our office windows again yesterday. I will break you, Geico plane!
• Ah, the spring semester has ended and our wee little city is blissfully (albeit temporarily) empty. It’ll only last until the first summer session starts, but it’s nice for now.