Since Coming Out of Work

I've learnt a few very significant things...

1. I have absolutely no idea how I ever had the time to work full time outside of the house. I'm amazed I managed it without having a nervous breakdown.
   
   
2. I really enjoy being at home. I've definitely been a much better wife and mother since coming out of work.
   
   
3. Toots enjoys being at home with me a lot more. We've been working on the discipline (hers and mine) the last week and we're enjoying each other's company a hell of a lot more. She's snuggled up beside me as I write and she has a little smile on her face.
   
   
4. A husband, with a wife at home, who knows how to use power tools and isn't afraid to, is a very happy husband indeed. He arrived home yesterday afternoon, completely exhausted after a very hard day and was planning on getting stuck into some jobs he felt needed done. He wanted to mow the lawn because it has been dry for a few days. He also wanted to put up the hooks on the back of the larder door for coats and other bits and pieces, plus a vent needed to be installed on the outside of the house to cover an air intake which is no longer in use.
   
   He hadn't noticed before that I'd already done all those things, plus a few others he had forgotten about over the last few days. Needless to say he was a very happy man. He was able to sit down and relax with a meal and his family and then spend the rest of the night winding down.
   
   
5. Being at home during the week, means that I can stay on top of all those little things which used to interfere with our weekend, grocery shopping, fish tank water changes, car washing and just the general cleaning and tidying which I would normally have done every weekend. All these things I now do during the week leaving all of us to truly enjoy our weekends, whether its a day out to the forest or the beach (still wrapped up warm though, we don't live in the tropics) or even just going out for a walk or spending time at home together.
   
   
6. We're eating a lot better than we did. When I worked full time I tried OAMC which sacrifices freshness and I always prefer fresh. I would end up coming in every evening and preparing something quickly. I still tried to cook from scratch which means having to buy better cuts of meat which can stand up to quick cooking but also cost a fortune and are usually lacking in taste. Now we have a good meal everyday, Toots is really enjoying her lunches because she decides (to a certain extent) what to make and she helps me to prepare the food, plus the husband is enjoying the variety of lunches he gets sent to work with along with the baked goods. We eat a lot more fresh vegetables and fruit because I always have time and I'm not to tired to run to the market at 6.30am on a Saturday morning and I'm really starting to feel the benefit of eating all this fresh food.
   
   
7. The garden is better organised this year. I already have all the plots of land cleared and have some of the earlier seeds in the ground and they're sprouting already. Last year we were all good intentions but wound up making a bit of pigs ear of things, planting seeds when WE had the time rather than at the right time, forgetting to water during the summer months and not picking the few things that did grow when they were at their best.
   

I could go on about this for hours, but I won't bend your ear for that long. If you stay at home, do you enjoy it? What are some of your favourite things about being at home? And if you work outside the house, how do you make it work for you?