If it means I must prepare to shoulder burdens with a worried air

Last winter I completed a project that is a Very Important part of my job, if not the most important, in about two weeks. I had never done anything like it, it was completely intimidating, I had to ask lots of questions and getting it finished before Christmas was kind of a big deal. "At least you won't have to worry about that over the holidays," I remember my boss saying when I mailed it off.

This year I finished the project in two days. Scratch that- two mornings.

I need to be doing something different.

This is what I would LIKE to do:
1. Have a baby. Preferably a very fat, very cute, roly poly one who doesn't scream or poop and sleeps all night, but I'm not choosy.
2. Write a Novel. Preferably the kind that gets me written up in the New York Review of Books as "Best Debut Novel Ever In the Entire World", but I am not that talented and I'll just settle for actually finishing a novel. The timeline for that is: Sometime before I die.
3. Learn how to make pretty websites. I have no qualification after this one- it seems difficult enough.
4. Do stuff at church. Right now this means starting a small group, I think. And I use the term "small group" purposefully as that's what the Protestants do and they are awesome at it and the Catholics? Woefully small group-less, at least at my church.

So permit me a small moment of self-congratulation here, dear readers, as I think I may have finally figured out what I want to be when I grow up:

A Harried Mother, a Starving Artist and an Occasional Starving Freelance Blog Designer who is Utterly Swamped By Her Churchy Obligations. My parents must be so proud.

However! None of these things necessarily involve an employer-type figure handing me a bucket of money, however small, every two weeks. That is a problem, no? The other problem is the problem of Right Now. While all the list items are definitely on the horizon, no one is going to drop off a baby on my doorstep tomorrow and give me an allowance while I spend my mornings writing and my afternoons going to web design classes. (Anyone?)

Although I do have Phillip, who has a work ethic 400 times the size of mine, who has Dreams and Goals and Ambition, all of which most certainly include regular income. And for this I am, obviously, terribly thankful. SOMEONE has to be responsible around here, right? But even if Phillip were a zillionaire, I'm not sure how I would feel about soaking in the tub all day reading InStyle and eating those little truffle thingies from Trader Joe's.

(Okay, that is an outright lie. I would be in Pig Heaven.)

So what do I do in the meantime? I need a day job before I can have the day job I really want. Make sense? Any ideas?

Comments

[lee]

i dunno, you seem to be doing pretty well as a nerd. and it pays well. i can't really speak to blog designing and novel writing as careers; i see them as very involved hobbies, the kind one could get into seriously with a slight reduction in tv-time. =P

good to hear you're providing The Church with the 411 on the small group idea, though to be fair i'm over here in this emergent thing - they have home groups, quest has c- (community) groups, bethany has gatherings... nobody has just a plain old bible study or small group anymore. what's the deal with that?

as far as the whole fat babies thing, i might need to get one on ebay or something here eventually, it's like the craze of the season amongst my friends and peers.