It’s 6:24 AM. It’s a work day, but I’m at home. Over the past few months I’ve constructed for myself a home office of sorts. Our home came with an apartment over the garage. It’s part of a 1935 addition that added our current kitchen, laundry room, and two-car garage. It was so full of ‘stuff’ when the house was for sale, that the agent didn’t even include it as a room in the house; nor did he include the fact that there’s a bathroom up here. Not that it’s a functional bathroom, mind you. Maybe in the spring we’ll be so bold as to turn the water on and see what happens.
But I have an office. It also functions as my model train room, the craft room, and the camera storage room. It’s barely insulated, so I need to keep a heater running full-time to keep it in the comfortable 60’s fahrenheit range.
Having a home office is great: It affords me the opportunity to work at home during snow days or on days when the things I need to accomplish can be done remotely so I can save myself 1.5 hours of commuting time. Plus, no one can just pop in for a chat. (I love such chats, to be sure, but they are a bit of a time-vacuum.) The office is pretty far removed from the rest of the house, so it’s relatively distraction-free.
The down side: work comes home with me. I like to keep work and home separate, and here it is slapping me in the face. Some days, having the office at home makes me not want to spend time with my family and they get blown off.
Well, right now I need my home office. I have reviews to write, a proposal in the works, and a manuscript I need to finish. And then there’s the matter of planning a new course that I’m teaching this coming semester and preparing for another week-long course for high schoolers that will also be happening this semester. Nothing has gotten accomplished at work for a few weeks, what with finals week, the holidays, and the usual associated chaos. Working at home means I can get my creative juices flowing and I can get into the writing groove for several hours straight.
My foci will be on the reviews and the proposal. Much as I don’t want to, I need to abandon the manuscript for the time being. My goal had been to have it submitted by the end of 2009, but that’s simply not going to happen. It’s disappointing, but I really need to move on. Maybe once classes have started and the proposal is submitted.
Well, back to it. Writing this has got my fingers set for some serious typing. Proposal, here I come!
Penny Higgins - Storyteller • Artist • Scientist 