The Joy of Snow Days

Diego made me do it.

That’s my story. Diego was a major winter storm that hit the South this past weekend. It dumped about 12 inches of snow, beautifully coated with ¼” of ice, in my town, meaning roads were impassable, schools were closed all week, and my office was snowed in. Yep, I couldn’t get to work. So this is what I found out while at home for a few extra days this week.

First, I like being home. Even with a teenager who attends college and works online from the house, I am comfortable in my own home, working in front of our wood stove. I put my noise-cancelling headset (dubbed the Learning Helmet for all my training videos) and started through my Wealthy Affiliate training.

I really don’t like my commute. At all. The major interstate to my workplace closed in late November and will remain so for almost 2 years. My commute went from a tolerable time of reflection and singing (yes, I’m that crazy woman belting out music next to you at the light) to a harrowing, teeth gnashing adventure race. Plus, it now eats up about 2 hours of each day that I could spend working on my web content. Which leads me to…

I can make nearly as much money working from home writing articles as I do at my regular job. I started doing this on the side as a way to make some extra money. It actually pays real money, and I am averaging about $125 to $150 a week writing about 2 hours a day. I had some extra time this week, and I found that my research skills and writing speed have picked up. I am making just a touch more per hour than I earn at my regular job. If only I could write about what I love doing…

And, I absolutely love what I do, just not my job. I work with older adults. I love them, the lessons I learn from them, their inspiring stories, and their resilience. These people are like family to me. I just don’t like the seemingly endless paperwork and bureaucracy I have to go through to get ANYTHING done. Or that the heat in my office doesn’t work. I really don’t like that.

So what did I do with this newfound knowledge?

Well, for starters, I upgraded to a premium membership at Wealthy Affiliate to take advantage of the training and features. I am planning to change over to a yearly payment option sometime this month. This way I can take advantage of that discount and commit to seeing if I can get a handle on this platform. Thank you to everyone for the warm welcome, advice, support, and follows.

I also took an extra day off so I could work on my training and web content some more. I really just couldn’t bring myself to drive in traffic and the snow!

And, I guess the biggest thing, I started making plans to leave my full-time job. I am going to try to stay on 2 days a week to keep my foot in the door and my pension. But, quite frankly, I can’t bring myself to think about staying on fulltime another year without it starting to negatively impact my health. I expect to transition out by the summer.

As I was peeking over the edge, worrying that I would lose my mind working from home, worrying that I wouldn’t make enough money to pay my bills, worrying about EVERYTHING, Diego came along and put just enough ice on the ledge that I slipped over. Without this push from a winter storm, I probably would have taken much longer to come to these realizations. So, thank you, Diego, for making me take a few days to stay home and really assess my situation. For making me realize I am happier working on my own schedule, not someone else’s. For giving me the time to really start the WA training and play around with all the features. And for helping me realize I could love what I do and my job at the same time.