Adjusting to Change

I am struggling with having Sami, by baby, go to all day kindy next year. I have been home with my kids for almost 10 years and now I will have no one at home.

I have been trying to work through "what's next" for me. Do I concentrate on getting more projects and turn my freelance writing and consulting business into something much bigger? Do I substitute teach on occasion? Do I work on that "always in the back of my mind" book? Or do I throw my feet up on the coffee table, search the Net for for cheap flights and eat bon-bons all day while I flip between soap operas and the Lifetime Movie Network?

I do know that I do not want to go back into an all day office environment. I want to be able to be home when my kids get off the bus. I want to be able to kiss them before school. I want to be able to take them back and forth to practices. I want to know what they are doing after school, especially with a middle school daughter. I also want to be able to volunteer at the school or chaperon field trips when I want. But at the same time I want to be able to do something for myself, and to use the talents that I have been given.

I used to think this time would never be here. After all it will be almost 13 years that I have had a child not in school. But somehow this time has crept up on me and I am not liking the change –– at all.

So if you are a SAHM, and you do not plan on going into the real working world, what are you when your kids go to school? Just a domestic engineer (AKA Housewife)? School volunteer? A SAHM w/o kids?