Home-Office
The ideal home office and childcare arrangement. I’ve never seen this, but I have a fantasy that I would have multifaceted help that could double as a nanny and a secretary…perhaps this could be a reality for someone, but like I said, mere fantasy for me.
The ideal home-office is one that is insulated from family noise and from little helping hands. I’ve had the fortunate experience of having tried several locations in our house. At one point I had the office in the baby’s room which worked okay when the baby slept a lot and wasn’t crawling or running around. My husband built me an office outside the house, which ended up being the best room of the house because it was well insulated and quiet. Currently, since the outside office in the transition area for the tail end of our construction project, I am working from the guest room. The guest room has the advantage of allowing me to be near and hear the kids as they play outside as well as throughout the rest of the house.
Inside Your Ideal Home-Office
Essentials for a home-office include:
1. Computer
2. Printer/copier/fax machine hopefully with a scanner.
3. Filing cabinet and a system to keep it organized.
4. A good-sized desk that allows you to spread out your work.
5. Book shelves for reference material and relevant information.
6. Storage for office supplies
7. Phone, although many people just use their cell phones now
Filed under: Homebased Business, household management, organization | Tagged: Homebased Business, make money from home, stay home mom, work from home
You can outsource an incredible amount of work. Not a nanny of course, but lots of other things can be handled for you.
We have 2 offices in our home, with an additional laptop station in the kitchen and ready to travel anywhere when necessary. I do not pin myself down to one spot. My children can play anywhere except the offices with great respect, as there is a toy room set aside similar to an office. My children knows that work is important, and when work is happening, they have many ways to stay entertained and keep busy, and when work is done, anything goes with tons of surprises without them asking, hinting or begging for one. I am very lucky as my children know the right place and time to do the right thing, with a total lack of life altering drama.
Since you left so many responses, I’ll try to address them here. I think it’s great you can do all your work from your computer or virtually anywhere. It sounds like you have a lot of space, but many people do not have that. Since I have 4 children, they have different needs. In all their lives they’ve always respected my work space, where ever it was and this is simply a factor of setting boundaries and expectations with my kids. I’m not sure where you got the idea of drama around work space, and setting it aside.
I always find it interesting when parents, especially women, can’t understand “me time”. Me time is not a dominant factor in the lives of most moms. In fact, most moms forget to set some aside for themselves. Things I include in my “me” time are getting a manicure/pedicure, going to a yoga class, taking a walk alone, writing in my journal, etc. This is not a long list of things I get to do every day, but a list of things I get to do once every couple of weeks. Some people get to do them more often, but that’s what my schedule currently offers.
Time for myself does not mean I’m trying to avoid my family or pretend I’m not a mom. We do lot’s of family things together, every day in fact, and in no way is work ever more important than my family or my children. It’s what I do to support them and make their lives better.
When you have teenagers, you need to realize that they are coming to a time in their lives when they need to create separation between themselves and you. They do this as part of growing up and their quest for adulthood. I do not needle my kids about every detail of their lives. I do not sneak into their email or go through their drawers unlike many, many parents I know. I don’t need to. If they have a problem they will tell me and if I sense one I will ask. We have very few disagreements and I am very lucky to have such great kids. I think I’ll write a post on that since I also have the experience of my husbands two older kids, now 23, and 26 who I’ve known and cared for since they were 9 and 12. I am friends with their mom and it’s been a great experience to be present in their growth through the teens to adulthood. They are both college graduates now with successful careers of their own.
With regard to your feeling that Costco doesn’t have healthy food, I will have to disagree, although, I’m not sure where you live and I’m sure all Costco’s are market sensitive. Of course Costco has a sugar packed area, as does Safeway, Vons, Raley’s, or any other grocery store; however, that doesn’t mean you need to put those items in your cart! At the Costco where I shop there are plenty of organic products from milk, to salad greens to meats and wild-caught fish. These items are much less expensive than if I bought them at Whole Foods or Safeway. Fruits and vegetables are probably the same as those at Safeway for the most part and so I steer clear. Unfortunately, our Costco also remodeled and added an enormous amount of prepared food, which I do not buy. As I mentioned, this is a function of market demographics and apparently it’s what the rest of the population wants to buy. If Costco had everything I thought was healthy I wouldn’t have to shop at Trader Joes, Whole Foods, the Farmer’s Market or my local boutique grocery. Life’s all about choices and in this country we’re lucky to still have plenty of them, especially where I live.
Costco had a seafood week and the housing for the seafood on display also house flies for all to see. Also, wild caught, farm raised, all came down to one thing, where did what came from, the associated mercury level, who processed it, and the last but not least, what is best for your children, and perhaps they have special needs. I stick to what I know and what everyone at the Livermore Lab knows that Costco remains to be the only place best for electronics, flat screen TV, GPS, flooring and carpet. I visit and hang out at Costco vegetable / freezer section on a hot day at over 100F here. I also know for a fact that not all Costco item is any cheaper than Safeway, or for that matter, Target. Coupon, promotion, volume purchasing, all part of the pricing factor. if Whole Food items are good for your children, get them.
For the sake of the children, which I already said, my children are so well behavior and made me so proud that the need to have any “ME” time is not as important as some of the parents might think. They have earned so much respect from us the parents that we are the one who need to leave them their private “ME” space and naturally, that’s the “ME” time and space all you and your could handle. Trust me when I say this, when the children are on the right path, no drama, shoot straight with completely honest communication, comes with harmony and plenty of “ME” time for everyone, and in the end of the day, everyone could not wait until the end of the day to share their brand new life experiences with each other, and make each other proud, that’s when the “ME” time end up worthless and meaningless to any one individual. “ME” time are simply “BAD” time for children who are going well and strong with their education and level of earned respect. “ME” time should only be applied to a situation that instead of timeout your children, you end up timeout yourself. Timeout is only for something bad happening in one’s life. If the time is good, why wouldn’t anyone let the good time roll as long as possible?
Please see my post as It appears you are a scientist working on Theory.
As I said, your Costco will cater to your market demographics, and it appears yours are not good. Since I don’t go swimming next to the fish I eat, I guess I’ll have a hard time figuring out exactly what there food chain activities are. I’ll just have to trust the ‘wild-caught’ and ‘organic’ labels like everyone else unless I’m on the dock buying from the fisherman. We all try to be discerning, but there is a fine line before we become hypocrites. What I mean by this is all of the ‘green’ shoppers out there who buy their pre-made dinners in various plastic containers and plop them in the microwave at home…come on now folks. What’s green in that? At least it’s on your mind and that’s an honest fact. I love you~zoe
By the way, what are you trusted brands? Plenty of claims on the label turned out to be a total lie with class action bearing down. What is your own method to separate yourself from the fools?
Theory is not fact, it’s only a developed hypothesis that is assumed by some to be true. I have lots of personal Theories, and sometimes, after having assumed them to be correct for years I’ve been proved or proved myself to be incorrect. It’s always enlightening to be able to enlighten myself.
I don’t shop by brand. I read packaging. I make most things at home, or buy them fresh so I mostly buy ingredients. I’m not trying to separate myself from anyone, I simply enjoy cooking and don’t like packaged foods or pre-made foods for a variety of reasons. People who can’t take responsibility for themselves or what they put in their mouths should certainly not be allowed class action law suits.
How do you keep from being a fool or picking up garbage cans for a living? Your un-posted comment was funny.
Absolutely 100% incorrect with your understanding of these use of terms…. Theory is a proven idea. Hypothesis as not a proven idea, it is simply an idea that is yet to be proven. Proven theory is a fact, also known as just “theory”, and non-proven theory is known as “hypothesis”, which is not a theory at all. Children already taught that in their high school years, unless either the child didn’t listen, or the school was located in the bottom of the national average.
Brand, means many things. Have you heard of Brand-X before? Brand-X has no reputation to protect, and therefore could freely claim whatever they are telling you on the packaging, however, not good famous brand, as they have a ongoing business with a history to protect, and probably went public already, and hence also shareholder’s best interest to protect. There is a major difference. Now, if you shop organic only, the brand still play out a major role, although chains like Whole Food would have filter out most of the good brand from the bad ones, as they have a reputation to protect themselves. Now, you can go to farmer’s market, buying everything organic, with or without labels depends on what you are buying, yet there are vendors getting kick out for selling items that are not organic in nature.
Your label reading approach is not the best approach in the sense that it is not quite necessary unless you want to break everything down to the molecules. The best bet is to shop from those who regulate the industry as they claim to be, which is a brand that comes with reputation itself to do the prescreening for you, then you can read the label all you want at home on your own free time. No wonder why you have such a strong need for “ME” time.
Nope, theories are corrected all of the time. And if you know anything about the process getting theories accepted and published or the pulls that go on within the politics of scientists you know also how often they are changed. There are many more theories than facts. Hypothesis are simply the initial basis from which people try to prove theories that support facts. Just because a theory supports a fact does not make it one. That’s why they are different and not one and the same.
I got into college with AP science classes and a Marine Biology Major. I do love that, but it does leave the doors pretty wide open.
With regard to brands, I do not trust those who ‘regulate’ any industry because they need to ply down to the lowest common denominator. Look at the FDA for example. They’ve become yet another ‘company’ in loose terms, trying to control what people grow, sell and ingest and much of it to the benefit of big food and drug companies rather than the public consumers.
Your attachment to personal time being a negative is interesting. Why does it bother you so much?
Great information and useful too… Thanks!
When working a work from home, home business work from internet job, you are in complete control of where and when you do your work. It will really be a big help if you have a great passion to succeed and are highly motivated.