When I woke this morning, I felt like the illness was gone but that I had no strength or energy. I went to work and requested that we see if I could arrange my work so I could leave early. Well, the stars aligned and I left around 12:30. Picked up some lunch on the way home, ate it in bed along with some chamomile tea, and read and watched TV until about 2 or 2:30, when I fell into an extremely deep sleep and didn't wake up till 5:30! I was dazed, but I feel more at my normal energy levels. I cooked a fairly complex dinner and still had energy to play with my toddler for about an hour before her bedtime.
Now that I'm feeling better, I need to start knocking out to-do's that I've been putting off. I need to schedule doctor and dentist appointments, renew/apply for passports for England, start to gather tax documents, finish reading a manuscript submission that I volunteered to review for AS's publishing house, and do my self-assessment at work. I also need to start working out again. But most of this can wait until next week. I think I'm just going to try and enjoy my energy and my family this weekend, for the most part.
We've been talking about AS not taking any more freelance projects soon. NT's all for it, but then it would mean if any household wants come up (home improvement etc.), we would either have to say no or find creative ways to finance it., if we have any hope of saving enough for a move to England. I'm all for that. I think we're in a good place and should be able to get through the next few years without buying much for the house. It's not a perfect home or anything, but if we want to save up and buy a better home, we'll need to accept that and make do with what we have.
AS shouldn't keep burning the candle at both ends, anyway. So I'm hoping after these next couple of projects she's already accepted, we'll all have the strength to help her give up this side income. It's good money, but at a heavy price to AS's work/life balance, health and free time.
And it's not like it couldn't be picked up at a later date if emergencies arose, or that there won't ever be any other, less punishing freelance opportunities for any of us.
Finally feeling back to normal
January 12th, 2013 at 06:35 am
January 12th, 2013 at 02:27 pm 1358000840
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January 14th, 2013 at 03:48 pm 1358178521
Jerry
January 14th, 2013 at 04:34 pm 1358181246
We don't. NT is a British citizen, and I'll be able to immigrate on a spousal visa since we're legally married. The girls will have 2 passports, once we get around to getting their British ones; they each have an American birth mother and NT as the father, so they'll essentially have dual citizenship. But AS doesn't have a clear path to permanent residency in the UK. So while we're trying to financially prepare to be able to move if the opportunity arises, we'll really just have to wait and see if moving to the UK becomes an option. Her best bet, in my mind, is to get a job there. It's very very difficult these days to get an employment visa now that EU citizens take precedent as well as Brits, but if AS is able to establish her reputation as a literary fiction/poetry editor, that's a small enough industry that she may be able to land some kind of job through that.
While we very much want to settle in England, our #1 priority is staying together as a family. So if we have to stay in the U.S., we'll make do, and just try to have room in the budget to visit England as often as possible.
We know we want to move into a bigger home eventually, so we've set a somewhat arbitrary deadline of 4 years to save up and plan as much as possible. If moving to England doesn't look like it's going to happen anytime soon at that point, we'll start looking to buy a bigger home here in Minnesota and put down (at least semi-permanent) roots here.