Biting off more than I can chew… is it worth it?

Sometimes when I’m madly rushing around on errands, up to my eyeballs in veggie or I’ve got my arm up a chicken, stuffing it, I wonder what I’ve gotten myself into. When my wife and I started our home based catering biz five years ago, we had images of leisurely afternoons, working happily side by side. Now, without precision timing, our schedule would be totally out-of-whack, we’d be stepping on each others’ toes and getting all hot and bothered with each other!

Our daily schedule is something like this :

6.00 am - Happy Bugle sounds (that’s my mobile phone alarm)
6.10 am - Get Sam and Sara ready for school
7.00 am - Pack the kids into the car and head to school
7.30 am - Quick breakfast with my wife at our favorite coffee-shop
8.00 am - To the market for the day’s supplies (veggie especially needs to be bought fresh)
9.00 am - Back home and down to work slicing, dicing, mincing, chopping
12.00 noon - Pick the kids from school
12.30 pm - Lunch
1.30 pm - If we’re lucky and we’ve planned everything perfectly, we get an hour to relax.
2.30 pm - Into the kitchen to start cooking
4.30 pm - Food packed and ready to be delivered to our customers
4.30 pm - Kids up from nap
5.00 pm - Kids settle down to do their homework after a half hour of cartoons
6.00 pm - Back from delivery and into the kitchen for cleanup duty
7.00 pm - Wet, tired, smelly and hungry, it’s time for dinner
8.00 pm - Short trip to the super to get the kids’ break time snack for school. More for the cool and FREE air-conditioned walk really.
9.00 pm - Back home and kids watch a cartoon or two before getting ready for bed
10.00 pm - Lights out for everyone.
And the cycle repeats.

In between it all, I have to beg, borrow or steal time to write, market, manage my websites, and just chill with my kids. I joke with other Dads about how lucky they are to get to go into office everyday and follow a work schedule. Work-at-home Dads will tell you they punched in for work and have never punched out! That’s me.

So it seems that my predicament is having bitten off more than I can chew! But in the quiet of those afternoon rest breaks when I hear Sam and Sara sneaking winks at each other and trying to smother their giggles when they should be sleeping, I remember all the times I was stuck in my cushy office slogging away at programming code and missing them terribly.

I ask myself… is it worth it? I know without a doubt… YES!

Popularity: 4% [?]