Busy Hands

We are insanely busy at work, which is amazing, WONDERFUL really. I work for my family business, and a small family business is either feast or famine. Right now there is no money coming in, but we are frantically filling orders faster than we can process them. I can't hardly make enough product to fill each days orders before UPS gets there to ship it all out.

So that means that in 30 days we will start seeing checks, nice big, fat juicy checks! This is a great thing!

But I'm on my 11th straight day of work. Some of my days are more manual labor than anything else. I'm hauling material around, packing, shipping, wrapping, using the industrial presses to cut materials, building the fire up...shoot, on Monday I built a fence to keep our shop mascots from running off. Whatever needs to be done, I do it.

In a small business we all wear a lot of hats. We are all order takers, janitorial crew, maintenance, shipping/packing, and general shop "monkey" as the need arises. You have to be flexible, and you have to realize that no job is beneath any of us. When it needs to be done you deal with it, without being asked, and without complaining. That's the nature of the beast.

That being said, I have so much personal freedom in this job. I make my schedule pretty much. I drop my kids off at school, go to work, pick them up when school is over and they come to work with me for the evening to finish up my shift. The days are long, well over 8 hours - but if I need a day off to deal with sick kids, or a field trip at the kid's school I have the ability to do that. No questions asked. As a single mom I can't trade that for the world.

So I'm busy... busier than I ever thought I would be. Doing this mommy gig alone is amazingly tough some days, and I'm sure I'm not excelling. We are all struggling and adjusting. But I'm doing the very best I can. I'm kicking ass at work, and I'm still finding time to cook meals, help with homework, and keep my house fairly clean. It's amazing. It helps that I don't sleep much, lol.

Being busy also has another side benefit, I don't have time to stew. No time to worry about bills, or what will happen between the BLT and I, or when I'll be able to fix that crack in my windshield, or whether or not the X will violate his restraining order and try to find me when he gets out. When I'm busy at work I can just let that all go and focus on the job at hand.

I am learning to appreciate this aspect of my life a lot. I didn't know if I could do this job. But I'm learning so much, and I'm enjoying it. I'm really very thankful for this opportunity and I'm going to make the most of it!