When I Grow Up

I'm always thinking and re-thinking and over-thinking the whole "what do I want to be when I grow up" thing. (The fact that I will be 40 in 3 months has no relevance to this whatsoever...)

On the one hand, I am busy as hell right now, even with no job. I hold 2 Board positions with the PTA, and a homeroom mom, a Brownie leader, on the School Advisory Council, and a reading assistant for Chase's class. On the average I am either up at the school or doing something for the school 12-20 hours a week. Sometimes more.

I have started to have to make lists of what I need to do when, becuase crap is starting to slip through the cracks. I am fairly organized (at least in my own mind), so it's really, really unlike me to do things like totally forget a meeting I was supposed to attend, or show up at the wrong time to help in the classroom. (Again - the fact that I will be 40 in 3 months has no bearing whatsoever on this...)

I also spend a fair amount of time driving kids to and from places. And it's easy right now, because Chase is off from soccer. But on the average week we have piano lessons on Monday, Girls Scouts every other Tuesday, Riding lessons on Wednesday, and Science Club on Thursdays. And that's just the one child.

Then there's the mundane stuff like laundry, cleaning, doctor's appointments, gift shopping, yard work, etc. I try to squeeze in workouts 3 times a week. Oh - and a playdate here or there. And birthday parties (usually 2-3 a month.) And if I'm lucky, a girls night out once in awhile.

Then there's the extra stuff - like Karlin's big travel brochure assignment on Melbourne Australia. No - I didn't do it for her. But she's 8, and she is still learning basic computer stuff. I helped her get to the right web sites for the research. I brought her home two travel guides from the Library. I had her type 99.9% of the info (which god bless her baby heart took her like 4 hours.) I changed the font to make it pretty, set the margins up so it would print correctly, and helped her cut it out. I also - after she had established her facts - printed some corresponding photos for her. She did the rest. The point here is that helping with a project like this takes a little time.

And in the middle of all this you have to pack lunches, make dinner, make breakfast. Then the cat throws up on the carpet. And you step in it wearing shoes so you don't know it. Which results in about 8 cat-vomit foot steps all over the recently cleaned carpet. Which seems big until your son dunps his humidifier all over his bedroom carpet in an attempt to "flood the Dinosaurs." It's going to take a week for that to dry out.

Anywho...so when I think about going back to work, I think "When in the HELL am I supposed to do that?" And if I did it, how in the hell would all this stuff get done?

So in one of my recent internet forays into Mexican all-inclusives, I decided - hey - I LOVE to travel. I wish I could travel more. All I need is time and money. Then it dawned on me...waaaaiiiiiit a sec. What if I could get PAID to TRAVEL?

That's it! I want to be a TRAVEL AGENT when I grown up!

(To be continued in part 2 - coming to a theater to you soon...)