I work from home

The HVAC guy asked how many kids I have, cause ya know, I work from home. So I must have kids.

Then he offered me his kids.

Why do people think this clever?

I work from home, I have no boss, and I love it. I also have no office drama, no annoying co-workers blah blah blahing and I can go play in my garden on nice days like yesterday (after I got my work done, of course).

In related news, I just started a job two days a week at the local botanic garden. I work at the gardening help desk, am responsible for opening and closing the building and corralling (and making the coffee for) the volunteers. It is very low stress and low responsibility (although I have responsibilities it is nothing like working at the science bench). I am so happy at this job: I get paid to go out and take pictures of plants to put on our website. C'mon, what is not to love?

When Triple S picked me up from work on Saturday, I am tallking his ear off at rapid fire rates. And I said, "I don't know why I am so happy at this job". Triple S is very wise. He said it is because:
1. I am no longer working in science, a field that overworks, underpays and underappreciates. Scientists like to give cold pricklies to their underlings. My new coworkers are actually human - warm and kind and not balls of stress and anxiety.
2. I have a job that is my hobby.
3. I get to talk to other people about my hobby all day. All the volunteers are expereinced gardeners (most are retired, so have many years of experience) and they love to talk about their gardens. I have learned a lot in four weeks. And when I told the one staff member that I was frustrated because I didn't have everything down yet, he said not to worry, it would take me a year! A year! Gad, I wouldn't have a year in science to figure out how to run an agarose gel or digest a plasmid.

So anyway, I am super happy about this new job. Some of the volunteers are more long-winded than others, but I only see some of them for 2.5 hrs once every month. That is the kind of 'coworker' I can handle.

The only down side is that I am stretched pretty thin this semester, with teaching microbiology, editing manuscripts, working at the garden, working on upteen half-started house projects, facing a possible move this summer, dreaming about new garden projects, trying to keep the house straight, two quilts that are cut, but no sewing commenced, and planning our trip to Mexico. Oh and that whole deadbabymama thing and Triple S all impatient to start again.

This was supposed to be a short post regarding the HVAC guy.