(Written in November) 

 This post has been painfully slow in coming.  I think I’ve been waiting to get some perspective.  Maybe I just don’t know where to begin.  Especially since my most recent posts (months ago!)  are so full of hope about making money using my artistic talent.

I live my life with absolute certainty that I will have very colorful chapters in my memoirs. 

Photo business plans are officially relegated to the back burner because I need an actual regular paycheck to keep us afloat.  (As if we were floating. We’ve been sinking slowly for a long long time.)  So, I started a full time job on October 22. 

At an egg farm.

When we moved from St. Paul’s notorious East Side to rural Minnesota five years ago, I went from full time working mom in the ’hood to stay at home mom in the country. Needless to say I experienced a bit of culture shock.  (Okay, I guess we still hear gunshots, but at least they’re not directed at people.)  Within the first five minutes of conversation you have with anyone you’re meeting for the first time out here, the subject of which church you attend comes up.  Our kids see cows every day on the bus ride to school.    It always takes the same amount of time to drive anywhere, no matter what time of day.  The only thing that will slow you down is a giant tractor, usually towing a trailer full of enormous round bales of something.

These aren’t judgments one way or another.  It’s just a very different lifestyle.  I knew that eventually I would go back to working, and I even guessed that it might be hard to find a job close to home.  I never guessed that I would be working as an administrative assistant at an egg farm.

My great grandparents and grandparents owned a hatchery.  I’m  suddenlyaware of the “come full circle”ness of the chicken/egg industry in my family’s history.  

And it’s actually a very good job.  I start work at 6 AM, which means that I get up and get ready to go before anyone else is awake and demanding anything.  The commute takes about 15 minutes.  I work in a newly remodeled office with windows, there’s a fridge stocked with pop and water, and my hours put me at home before my kids get off the bus.  The pay is decent and the benefits are great.   

I’ve resisted getting a full time job for all sorts of reasons, the biggest of which is that I’ve spent about thirteen years reconciling my role as a mother and I’ve finally gotten to a place where I actually really enjoyed my life.  Well, that and I’m scared that I’m not actually skilled enough to be useful out in the workforce.  Why do you think I chose to work part time as a lunch lady?  Maybe because it was such a ’safe’ and ‘easy’ job.

I’ve been making a huge, conscious effort in my spiritual life that is too big to describe using words.  And here I am, listing this as ‘number three’ as if it’s something separate from our financial crisis and my journey back into full-time employment.  It’s all hopelessly connected.