volunteerism - at home and away

the evening after the dinner before, originally uploaded by ebbandflo_pomomama.

Like many stay-at-home mums, my life was completely different pre-child. For one thing, I had a career which delivered a regular salary cheque into my bank account. I was thus financially independent of my spouse and, once the joint responsibilities were taken care of, could do whatever I wanted to with My money.

Not so these days. Although the joint account is technically Our money there is still the emotional hurdle that it is my husband who is earning the dosh which lands every two weeks or so. And since I'm the one in charge of the household budget I know exactly how good or bad our finances are doing at any one time.

In life pre-child my interaction with my community could be summarised by "open wallet, put cash in the collecting tin". Not so these days as our family 'runs' on a single income and has to be budgeted tightly. But I still like to contribute to the community, and this translates into volunteering my time.

Time is very precious to me these days. As a mother and housewife personal time is generally in short supply. I'm also trying to run a modest home business in, around and in spite of my family. My personal time gets carved up and squeezed into odd moments throughout the day (and into the night).

So this is what faced me when i walked in from my meeting one evening.

I volunteer on a local non-profit board of directors. Tuesdays are a "leetle beet" rushed since the wee guy has piano lessons late afternoon. I had scurried to prepare a nutritious meal for my family and then sped out of the door to my meeting. I was gone for about two hours. When i got back all the detritus from the meal and prep was still cluttering up the sink and counter with my husband calmly getting on with some 'real work' on his laptop.

Gee, thanks for helping me volunteer in the community.
file under: selflessness, respect (lack of)