Benefits

My first two posts have been quite serious, and since I'm not ALWAYS serious :) I wanted to post a list I started of the benefits of not working.  Obviously, freedom to do what you want whenever is huge, but there are also smaller things I've been thinking about during this first week at home:

• I can shop at Target at 3 o'clock Thursday.  A much different crowd than I normally run into (lots and lots of babies) and it feels much more relaxed than my hurried stops after work.
• No more frozen meals for lunch.  I always ate them since they were easy and relatively inexpensive, but after six years of frozen meals almost every single day I am completely over them so it is great to be able to make myself lunch every day.
• Not having to shower first thing in the morning (or at all).  Usually I feel disgusting if I don't shower right away, but when I'm not sitting at a desk all day it doesn't seem to bother me :).
• Being able to go to church finance team meetings and not worry about having to get to work on time, since my schedule was not at all flexible at my last job.
• Being able to meet a friend for lunch at 1:30 in the afternoon.
• Being able to wear jeans and a T-shirt all day long.  Although sometimes it is fun to dress in nice clothes, I was really tired of it and I feel much more myself in jeans.
• Being able to wear the same clothes multiple days in a row.  So far I have not been going to the same places or seeing the same people every day (unlike work) so no one knows if I wore the same shirt yesterday :).

The list could go on but you get the point.  Even though I still feel like I'm running around all day trying to get stuff done (clean the house, bring the cars to the shop, go grocery shopping, make dinner, catch up on things we've let slide over the years, etc) it is so much better knowing I can do these things during the day and no one really cares if I'm showered and in business casual clothes!