The terrifying thing, part one

I have a really hard time telling a story without first giving you all the background. I have an announcement of sorts, but I want to explain before I get into all the details. I don’t appreciate link-bait teaser type posts though, so I’ll tell you up front, the announcement is that I’m working again, and have been for a while.

ribbon-cutting

I’ve been designing, developing, and testing product for a company that hasn’t quite launched yet. They (we) are going to be kicking things off in April with a Kickstarter. And I am deeply involved in the process (I even have a patent pending, holy crow) and will be the ‘face’ of the product launch.

This is terrifying.

It’s mind-numbingly terrifying, actually. For a myriad of reasons that I want to tell you about. But a little background first, okay? It’ll make me feel better if I know you have the whole story and not just bits of it.

Once upon a time

As most of you know, after selling our online fabric store my husband and I agreed to switch roles. I became the sole breadwinner for the family, and my husband took over the primary parenting role and homeschooled our children.

This arrangement lasted for nearly two years. There were lots of things I wanted to write about during this period, but couldn’t really. A lot of what’s happening now has to do with what happened then, and I think the time is right for sharing some of my experiences.

In the midst of it all I had a bit of a blog identity crisis. I didn’t know what to do with this space. I had already been mindfully moving away from posting as much about my children; they were growing up and I gave them a say in what I might write about online. Increasingly, they were vetoing blog topics and photos that featured them, and I respected that. Besides, with my husband handling the homeschooling during this time, I didn’t have the same kind of day to day interaction that I’d had in the past; the kind that naturally resulted in photos and posts about our home life.

Obviously there is more to life than picturesque photos of art projects or nature walks, so a natural blog shift would have included more posts about work, but writing about work is a tricky thing to do without upsetting others or looking tacky (eg: complaining about work you should be grateful to have). Plus, a lot of what I wanted to write about had to do with highly frustrating and distressing negotiations with one of my clients. At the time I felt a lot of pressure to make the relationship work as the gig made up the bulk of my income, so I didn’t want to risk making things worse by venting here.

I wasn’t happy though, and several stars aligned (house sold, husband got a job) I was able to walk away. It was an enormous relief.

During some of my most frustrating experiences with my main client in the previous year, I’d begun sending out resumes and interviewed with several web design firms that offered remote positions. Through this process I made a contact that would later result in a very interesting business opportunity.

It was spring of 2014 and I labored over this path quite a bit. I was really, really (REALLY) burned out, and my health had begun its downward spiral; I was so happy to not be working and feel like my own person again. I wanted badly to be able to be a full time mother, but did I have the luxury and privilege of not working? I wasn’t sure. Even though we were debt free, it felt like we still had a long way to go towards secure financial footing (eg: savings, retirement, homestead / farm dreams, house building, etc.) My husband had managed to replace my income, but was it enough to get us ahead?

Taking this chance could really help us out in that department if I could figure out how to make it work while still being able to prioritize my health and family.