After17 years as a housewife, I am hanging up my apron to join the work brigade with regular office hours. Well, it was good while it lasted. I enjoyed being a housewife, though some people could not hack this type of life. I enjoyed the writing-from-home life too. But, it’s time for a new chapter.
This change has to be reflected in this blog. It can’t be Life’s Like That – the ramblings of a desperate housewife anymore. It’s now called Life’s Like That @ Cambridge. The language centre I’m running is a franchise business – Cambridge English for Life but to include this in the blog title would be a mouthful, hence just Cambridge.
As a result of this new venture, necessarily there has to be a change in lifestyle.
- Now I have to wake up early everyday to go to the office. My ‘early’ is your ‘late’ so I won’t tell you how early is early. But I have to be in the office at 10.00 am from Tuesdays to Saturdays. Commuting to work takes approximately 30 to 45 minutes depending on the traffic condition.
- Now I can’t cook everyday like I used to. The kids are already missing mum’s cooking but there’s no choice. I have to cater food unless I want to be stressed up even more by cooking before I leave for work. Home-cooked food has to be reserved for Sundays, Mondays and public holidays.
- Now there is less leisure time to read the newspapers and watch TV and just lepaking around. After getting home from work, there are still chores to be done – washing the toilets, doing the laundry, clearing up this and that, doing a bit of revision with no. 4 when it comes to exam time. I have forgotten how hard working career women are and have renewed my respect for them.
- Now the kids must do more chores. They have to help out more around the house, especially the two younger ones. The teenagers are in college and have less time at their disposal.
- Now no. 1 has to shoulder some of the chauffeuring duties or as he puts it, “a part-time mother.”
- Now I have to put on my sweetest telephone voice. My voice has never been sweet – especially on the phone and I usually sound like I’ve just got out of bed or I’ve just ran a 5-kilometre marathon. My colleague from another centre said I sounded so tired on the phone. Haha, that’s just me, my dear. Now for the sake of attracting students, I shall have to put on my perkiest voice to sound as if I’ve just struck the jackpot in a contest.
- Now there’s less time for writing. But this may be a good thing to force me to be more productive in the limited time I have. I don’t intend to stop writing yet. Just taking a breather from it. After I’ve settled down a little at Cambridge, it’s back to the keyboard.
We had our official opening on Sunday. Here are some pictures of the event. More pix here. Thanks to Rick for the photos.
Blog readers, thank you for your forbearance with this inactive blog. As you know I’d been pretty busy getting the manuscript for my children’s guidebook done. Well, it was done and submitted BUT I have to rework it to add more information. Thankfully, my new deadline is end of the year, so there’s time yet.
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