Boy, was I wrong. You see, as a family we decided it would be best for me to try and find something with little or no travel since Mr. Average travels for his job and coordinating schedules would be a total nightmare. Needing to schedule travel 4-6 weeks out to coordinate with the airline schedule just does not work with this requirement.

I think it was probably about three months into job hunting when I took a real hard look at whether or not I even wanted to continue looking. By that time, I had re-connected with my family and had come to a full understanding of everything I had been missing while I was at work. I was one of those workaholics – I left work, came home for dinner, and immediately jumped back on the computer to do more work. Being the sole contact for public relations at the small company I worked for did not help – it was not uncommon for me to be speaking with a reporter and/or trading emails with my CEO or customers in the evenings. Plus, we had shuffled some things around and financially we discovered that if we were careful, we could make our bills comfortably and I would probably never have to go to work again. So I was left asking myself, “Is it really worth losing this time with my family to go to work when we don’t need the money?” And, to be honest, after being able to sleep a little later and getting a lot of things done I had let go around the house, the thought of getting up early and fighting Dallas traffic to go to a job I really didn’t need was getting less and less appealing.

So….one night I walked into our bedroom and told Tommy, “I don’t think I’m gonna go back to work.” He said that was fine, but I think he was really surprised as I had been so driven to succeed in my field before the last layoff. After doing a close examination of priorities it was painful for me, given my past success. But sometimes you have to do what is right for your family. I am a firm believer that you can have it all – just not all at once – if there are kids involved.

So now I am at home and I have to say I have really enjoyed spending time with my family and doing some much needed work to make our house prettier. Mr. Average is home from work at least half the month, and when he’s home (especially in the summer) it’s truly like a vacation with neither one of us working. I have done a few free-lance things and will continue to do those as they come up, but currently I am not aggressively seeking full-time employment and I think my family is better for it. I will probably go back to work eventually, but it will have to be the right thing. And next time, my priorities will definitely be straight so my family does not suffer for it.

I’ll post more at a later date on this subject. We’ll talk about PTA Nazis and their ilk, the neighborhood cliques, and other things.