The soap business has grown to the point that we had to make a decision. Continue to grow it, or scale it back down. Since we love making soap and have had so much positive feedback, we’ve decided to grow the business. In order to do this, Jim had to cut down his hours at work. With his boss’s approval and support (thanks, Jon!), Jim will only be working outside of the house 2 days a week.

Do you know what that means?

That means he will be home five days of the week! (See, I’m qualified to be a homeschooling mom).

Isn’t that exciting?

But I also realize that there are going to be some challenges to having Jim home so much. The biggest one is the noise level. Jim doesn’t do so well with loud, sustained noise. And in case you don’t remember, I have 8 children. And they tend to be rather loud children. In fact one of my friends once told me that Hewitt did not inherit the “quiet gene”.

But we do have a solution. It’s these:

Those are earplugs. See how dirty they are? That’s because we usually wear them outside when we mow the lawn. But Jim will often wear them in the house because… well, because it’s just too loud!

Problem 1 – solved!

Another problem surfaced the other morning. It was actually Jim’s first “work day” working from home. We slept in until about 8:00. At 8:00 I jumped out of bed and started running around getting everything done because we had people coming at 10:00. Jim (like the great husband he is) started washing all the dishes and doing other chores as well. About 9:30 I looked at him and asked him, “What’s the matter? Why are you so grumpy? Aren’t you glad to be home?”

He just looked at me with this dazed look and said, “I haven’t eaten. I haven’t had coffee. I usually get up at 5:00 am when it is nice and quiet and I slowly wake up.”

Ok, so I’m going to have to make some adjustments. Not sure how to do that since I’d rather sleep in til 8:00, skip breakfast and run around than get up at 5:00. But I’m sure we’ll figure something out.

I was actually trying to remember that this morning. Take it nice and easy, slow and relaxing. We were still in bed when the telephone rang.

Caller: “Hi, this is Charlestown Family Dentistry. Jim, Brett, Colter, and Hewitt were due here for their cleanings 15 minutes ago.”

Me: “Uh, ok sorry, they’ll be right there.”

click.

Me: “JIM!! GET UP! YOU’VE GOT TO RUN, YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BE AT THE DENTIST FIFTEEN MINUTES AGO. MOVE! MOVE! MOVE!”

Poor Jim.

When he arrived home around 11:00, he still looked rather dazed.

I hope he can survive not working.