I work from home too much. I do. I am a self-employed homebody. “Oh you poor thing,” you’re thinking, “such a curse.” Sometimes it is. Because sometimes it makes me feel like a glorified housewife. I’m a writer. I’m a freelance writer. I’ve sold some, and opportunities are slowly trickling in, but I have yet to approach anything like a regular, consistent income. I work at home, and I don’t make a lot of money. Then something happens that really makes me feel like a glorified housewife instead of a writing entrepenuer.
My husband and I have friends visiting this much. Earlier in the week (but after the weekend), The Hubby says, “The deadline for the project I’m working on is due Friday, so I’m going to be working late this week, to get it done.”
“Okay,” I said. I didn’t marry until I was 36. I can eat supper alone for a few days. But that’s not all.
“While B & J are in town, they’ll probably be coming over, so the place really needs to be cleaned.”
But he’s working late every night this week. So that means…. Yep, that means me. Thankfully Lainie is coming over to help, so I can get some work done today. But still why couldn’t he (or me) think of the cleaning over the weekend (after all we knew they would be here) when we were both not working and both home?
With my fear of being a glorified housewife who’s just pretending to be a writer, I assume that he assumes that I am the one who should be cleaning the house. Of course, I know better. He does help. But the last couple of weeks, we…well let’s just say we have not been the best housekeepers. Things have piled up, the floors are filthy, and there are cat hair tumbleweeds the size of guinea pigs rolling around. When The Hubby makes a comment about the state of the floors, I automatically get apologetic. After all I should have been doing a better job. What? Wait a minute! Back up! Why am I assuming it’s automatically my job to keep things clean? We agreed when we got married, he was helping with the housework. I was not doing everything. So why am I assuming that I should have been the one keeping the floors clean? Instead what I should have said is, “Yeah, we should have been doing a better job of cleaning the last couple of weeks.”
Of course, when I feel like I’m a glorified housewife who’s pretending to be a writer, and thinking that I should be doing a better of job of “keeping house,” I get snarky. And I was snarky before The Hubby left for work. (Sorry honey!)
So there you have it: the curse of being self-employed working at home. So may be I need to work at the library more.
Me too! I occasionally catch myself thinking that, and it scares the bejeebers out of me!
I understand this to a degree. I am studying for exams, but that means I am home a lot. I do a lot of the housework because “I’m home” as Brad puts it. There are days I, too, feel like a glorified housewife. Then there’s times that I think it wouldn’t be as bad as I thought (pending that was my ONLY job). Those are the times that scare me.