I live in my car. It is my home away from home. Unfortunately it is not a vacation home! It is more like an office away from the office, as I am typing this entry from the comforts of my 99 Voyager minivan. See, my kids go to school in a town about a 30 minutes drive away, and there are some layovers between the 2 kids school pickup times. Fallon, who is in 7th grade, goes to “Advanced Band” before school at 7:45. Alia’s school starts at 8:30… Then in the afternoon there is usually only a 5 minute gap between them but 2 days a week Fallon stays an extra hour for Honor Choir. Then every Wednesday which is a shortended day, there is a 30 minute gap between kids. Tuesdays we get another hour of work time in while I sit in the parking lot at church and the girls attend classes.

Have I mentioned how much I love my Macintosh G4 laptop? It is an oldie but goodie, a hand-me-down from my Dad, one of those things I just can’t live without. I get in a lot of work in the car! Sometimes Terry is asleep in his carseat behind me, sometimes he is busy playing, and sometimes I leave the computer home and just hang out, or read mindless magazines or an occasional book. Alia does her homework or talks to us about her day, pops over to the park nearby and sometimes we do her “book interviews” for school. I have a bin between the seats where I keep everything I need and before I head out the door I grab the computer, my planner, and my phone message logbook and toss them in.

I do not enjoy this living in my car thing but I make the most of it. One day my home-based business will enable us to move closer to the kids’ schools, so I can go back and forth more easily, or they can even walk home (what a dream!) but for now we find the hotspots in town, or just work offline, sometimes we watch funny videos or read jokes the grandpas email us, or go to Noggin or Sprout and play games. I figure we spend 4 hours a week just sitting in this car, and an additional 6 hour driving in it. Maybe my next goal should be a new car!! I’ve had my eye on a Saturn Outlook for a while… My friend Carol who is my Tupperware consultant also sells Saturns so I think of it at least every month when I see her… Nah. The house comes first, then I won’t be spending as much time in my office away from the office… Although knowing me, freeing up 10 hours in my week wouldn’t necessarily translate into 10 additional hours of productivity! I’d probably spend a lot of it sleeping later and being more involved in the kids’ schools. Hmmm… Time to set my sights on that goal… it sound great to me! How about this one, how’s that for an audacious “go for” goal?? Sigh…