My New Gig

Uh, no, there will be no more babies. At least not mine!

The title is sort of ambiguous here because it seems like I have multiple gigs at any given time. Mid-mid-life crisis, I'm trying to cut down on them and really figure out what I want to be when I grow up. I don't know that I'm making much progress on that.

In the meantime, a fantastic part-time job fell out of the sky and into my lap. It uses my genetics degree and all that writing training. And it pays well. And I can work at home most of the time. Or I can go into the office and interact with human beings, rather than sharing some passing words with the guinea pigs and having a very large cat sit on my keyboard. I'm excited...and completely daunted. I haven't worked in an office with any regularity in almost 10 years. And when I took this job, I'd conveniently forgotten that my kids have full weeks off school...including one at Thanksgiving and two weeks around Christmas. Those times are coming right up. Well, best to set the bar low early on, right?

But that wasn't really what I wanted to write about, because although it's a great job and it'll be a nice change for me, I know it's not going to be something that scratches whatever itch I've got going on. It won't be wildly fulfilling. It won't fill that unnamed void in my life. It's a fun new challenge, but it won't be challenging forever. And let's face it, tech writing will never be exciting.

What's far more exciting is that a while back, my friend, K, asked me who takes my Christmas photographs for my holiday cards. Well, that was flattering. If you've been around my blog a while, you know I take them all myself most years. And I have fun doing it too. A few weeks later, K e-mailed and asked if she could pay me to take some photos of her daughters. Pay me? To take photos? You've got to be kidding! But I was thrilled to have the opportunity.

So, last weekend, I showed up at her house bright and early. Her younger daughter, R, was just getting up when I arrived. Fortunately, she's a happy morning baby, so she was fun to photograph.R's big sister, M, was asleep during most of this photo shoot and wasn't altogether thrilled about getting dressed up all pretty just to have her picture taken. She wasn't about to sit still for it either, but that's just as well, I suppose. And in a way, it made for some more interesting photos.It was a little challenging and I can't claim to have much knowledge of what I was doing, but I liked the results and I think K did too (unless she was just being nice!). I'm pretty sure M was more than a little relieved when I left!Now, I've got a whole host of fun little activities to turn into little side businesses! Tech writer by day, photographer in the early morning and cake decorator at night. And don't forget pumpkin carver in October. No clue who's going to pay me for that yet!

And for the record, I didn't actually charge K for my time. Since I neglected to successfully get her a gift to celebrate the birth of R, this is it. I think this'll last a whole lot longer and be more appreciated than those flowers Teleflora failed to deliver anyway!