misericorde
- 13
I expect my husband to share in the household and parenting duties, and he expects the same. In our house, nobody would dare say that he's so good for "helping" me. He simply does his half of the chores, I do mine, and sometimes we cover each other when careers or kids intrude.
The only barrier to our idyllic life is the Navy, my arch-nemesis. We just got transferred from Virginia to SoCal, a fact that makes me smile. I way prefer the west coast, and it turns out bookings are so much easier to come by out here than they were in DC. But naturally, when my own career is really showing promise, the underway schedule goes nuts. Since we moved in and had our 50 million pounds of household goods delivered, he's been gone (yes, I'm trying to unpack our stuff, wedge into a smaller house than we had back east, and care for a 2 year-old and an 11 month-old at the same time... alone). That was a month ago. He's due back in another week... for three weeks. Then they're gone again. This schedule continues until March when they leave for at least six months.
This schedule has put me in the bookings hurt locker. I haven't been here long enough to find a babysitter, but even if I did have one, who can afford it? Between gas and the sitter, I'm no more ahead than I was.
I was able to do one show when we were still in temporary housing, and I got two hard bookings for November and four soft bookings. That's amazing - I've never had more than two bookings of any flavor before. Everyone wants to do a party, but now I can't schedule parties with confidence that I'll have childcare.
For those of you with husbands who don't watch their kids or are unable to for whatever reason, how do you deal with your business? I'm at the point now that I think I'll wait for April to stock up on some knives and maybe new spring products on the cheap, then let myself go inactive. If the schedule improves when the husband returns in the fall (we hope... please behave, Kim Jong Il!), I could start again. It just seems like a complete shame to go inactive when there's plenty of business out here.
Frustrated in Cali
The only barrier to our idyllic life is the Navy, my arch-nemesis. We just got transferred from Virginia to SoCal, a fact that makes me smile. I way prefer the west coast, and it turns out bookings are so much easier to come by out here than they were in DC. But naturally, when my own career is really showing promise, the underway schedule goes nuts. Since we moved in and had our 50 million pounds of household goods delivered, he's been gone (yes, I'm trying to unpack our stuff, wedge into a smaller house than we had back east, and care for a 2 year-old and an 11 month-old at the same time... alone). That was a month ago. He's due back in another week... for three weeks. Then they're gone again. This schedule continues until March when they leave for at least six months.
This schedule has put me in the bookings hurt locker. I haven't been here long enough to find a babysitter, but even if I did have one, who can afford it? Between gas and the sitter, I'm no more ahead than I was.
I was able to do one show when we were still in temporary housing, and I got two hard bookings for November and four soft bookings. That's amazing - I've never had more than two bookings of any flavor before. Everyone wants to do a party, but now I can't schedule parties with confidence that I'll have childcare.
For those of you with husbands who don't watch their kids or are unable to for whatever reason, how do you deal with your business? I'm at the point now that I think I'll wait for April to stock up on some knives and maybe new spring products on the cheap, then let myself go inactive. If the schedule improves when the husband returns in the fall (we hope... please behave, Kim Jong Il!), I could start again. It just seems like a complete shame to go inactive when there's plenty of business out here.
Frustrated in Cali
