It’s been a scintillating weekend of breaking up the girls’ squabbles, food shopping (I had avoided Wal-Mart for an entire month, but I paid for it), and rearranging/tossing.
Come January 1, the combined forces of Right Angle Consulting, Nap Mats and More and Sassy Onesies will be living happily together in my house. About 6 months ago, I sat down and actually figured out how much it cost us to have office space between rent, phone, internet, and general expenses. It turned out to be a large chunk of change, one that would make a serious dent in the amount of debt we still carry from the start up days.
It’s weird though. I’ve always taken great pride in explaining very fervently, “Oh no, I don’t work out of my house. We have OFFICE space.” As if that sentence makes us more legitimate (I still think it does). I like the physical separation of my private life versus my work one, although my Crackberry is always with me and the separation is really just a facade. I have always liked “going” somewhere to work. When I first started Right Angle, I worked from home. Many times I’d find myself doing laundry or watching reruns of ER instead of billing. I’m still a little afraid of my never-ending to do list around the house, but then I remember the large amount of money being saved and I tell myself to suck it up. Lots of successful people work from home and it doesn’t mean they are big losers.
These changes have been good in one sense - I spent some time yesterday slogging through the office in our house rearranging and throwing out stuff. Why have I been holding on to Paul’s thesis drawings from RISD? Why do I even have them? And how many broken picture frames does one need? How many gift bags must one keep? And am I ever going to play Quake again? No. Upstairs, on the third floor, I rearranged both closets to make room for inventory. I was only sidetracked momentarily when I came across the box with my wedding dress in it. During one of the moves, the box had come open, so I pulled the dress out. The waist is impossibly small. I can’t believe I ever fit in that thing. Mike kindly reminded me, “Well, you did starve for 6 months to get into it.” And that was before I pushed two little nuggets out into the world, forever changing the shape of my hips and enlarging my feet a half size.
Today I’ll finish up the third floor and slowly start bringing things over from the office. Until I finish up the editorial calendar project, I need to work out of the space, but emotionally I’m already preparing. Our desks were sold, our files have been consolidated down to two boxes, and there isn’t a whole lot left that we don’t need. And the best part? I won’t have to share a bathroom with someone in the building who poops about 6 times a day and smells up the hallway to the office. Bonus!
