soon to be employed

OK. Wow. I accepted the part-time job just half an hour ago. There was a wee bit of pressure (sure, we took 5 months, but can you decide in one day? because we have to get back to the other people we've been stringing along.)

The contract came via e-mail at 2 pm. I still went to the full-time interview at 4 pm, and I have to say it was great. I really, really liked the person for whom I'd be working. I know how to do the job he needs filled, and I find it interesting and energizing to do that sort of work. The part-time job? Is a stretch for me. But a good one - for a part-time position, it's a major resume builder. It's a skill set I've done as part of my other positions, but never very much. It has high visibility and I'll make a lot of contacts. And I really, really liked them and wanted that job last fall - I think the long delay and my frustration with them has clouded how excited I was I came home last night totally torn. I'm still torn, to be honest.

And, having my ego take a major bruising last year, I'm gun shy. Am I really a good employee? Am I really talented? Do I have things to offer? The full-time gig interview was good for my ego, and doing a job I'd totally know how to do, in a big organization, has some safety appeal. A contract, located away from the home office - hello exact same situation from which I was fired last year. But, maybe that's also a reason not to shy away. To get right back up there and succeed.

I'm worried about money, and full-time gives us more money. But we've started going to open houses to get my daughter into school (since we live in a city, we have options even for public school, it's not just go to your neighborhood school). And at each one I've thought - but how will we pick her up from school? How will we all get ready and out the door by 8 am? When will I be able to ask her about her day? When will I get to spend time with her? Some organization did a study on working parents about a year ago. The holy grail for working parents is meaningful, well compensated part-time work. And that's what this is.

So I took it. The funny thing? I read back through some old job posts and saw I said we'd be relatively ok financially through March, if we instituted some belt-tightening. And that's exactly how this will play out. I'll start working March 1 (or 2nd, really) and be paid monthly in arrears, in early April. Just like everyone, there's more belt-tightening to come, areas we can cut back, credit cards to be paid off. Scary inancial news everyplace we look.

But. Whew. This is a big relief. I've been thinking where I was a year ago - new job, newly pregnant, thinking 2008 would be a much easier year than '07. So here we are, '09, new job, new baby, working on the relationship, hanging in there. Worried about the financial mess this country is in right now. Trying not to think about what could possibly go wrong next (and there's a few possibilities). How's your '09 looking? Are you optimistic? Pessimistic? Just taking it as it comes?