Something New For Us

Today The Boss worked from home. That's new for us, as we've been a "commuting by train "family for the whole three years we've lived here. He loves his job and he loves the mission of his organization, but the stress and pressure of being "in another world" (aka the city) all day long and returning home (to the "real" world!) by train was beginning to wear thin. It required two completely different mindsets for him, and a mental adjustment each time he would board the train to and from the office. You could say, the novelty wore off. Honestly, the novelty of it all wore off for me loooooong ago, but he took a while longer to experience the drag of it all.

So he went to his boss and requested permission to occasionally work from home. He has the technology, both at the office and here, to do so. And he has great people (both above and below his position) in place to allow him the freedom of working remote. He just didn't have the flexibility in his departmental culture to allow for it. When he presented his case for doing so and his boss granted him permission to try it once per pay period, we were elated. We didn't expect that kind of flexibility to be granted.

And now that it's here, I've discovered that I'll have a bit more adjusting to do than I naively thought would be necessary. See, I love, love, love hanging out with The Boss. He's so laid back and easy going that I (usually!) feel relaxed just being home with him. Usually. But I found myself acting today (a Wednesday!) as it were Saturday. I (we) slept in, played on the computer, took my time getting to Curves, and made dinner really, really early (for us). That's all well and good for now, during Summer Break, but I am going to have to kick myself in the pants to remain productive when the kids are off to school. I can see it coming . . .

But the really great thing about The Boss working from home is this: today he was relaxed and "present" enough (ladies, don't you all know just what I mean?!) to sit with me and wrap up several conversations that I've been trying to finish since school got out. We made three big decisions in one 15 minute conversation:

• Baby Blue Eyes will do kindergarten here at home this year
  
• LadyBug will do one more year of public school, then we will re-evaluate both during the process of the adoption (they both want to be home with the baby :)
  
• We will not make a decision on a part-time job for me till school gets underway (we've been contemplating that for a while, to help with adoption finances)

And we didn't argue or fade out or misunderstand each other from a place of exhaustion or overload even once. It was amazing. So amazing in fact, that I feel as if I'd lost 10 pounds of thought life.

Now if I could just get the scale to move as quickly as our decision-making process!

*Side note: while I was posting this, The Boss and the boys worked in the basement on a long-unfinished project that I was mentioning at dinner tonight. Wow! I love this work at home thing :)