Yo ho ho, a freelancer's life for me!

My week of being alone is finally almost up -- Michael comes home today!

I had several assumptions going into this week, some of which turned out to be true, and some of which didn't.

Assumption #1: The entire week would be as lonely as Sunday was.
Thankfully, this was not true. Sunday was difficult, probably because I'm not accustomed to taking Michael to the airport in the middle of the day. But in fact, the rest of the week wasn't as bad. I always get up after Michael has already left for work, so most days I got up and started my day just as I always would. The evenings were a little strange -- it felt like the day lasted longer, somehow, because evening would come and go without Michael coming home from work.

Assumption #2: I'd have lots of time to work.
Ha. Ha ha ha ha ha. I don't know quite how it happened, but I ended up only having one evening to myself -- and that was yesterday evening, after spending all day with my family.

Monday evening my mom helped me walk the dogs. True, it didn't take up all of my evening, but enough.

Tuesday evening I babysat.

Wednesday evening I went out to dinner with a friend.

Yesterday... Well, read this post for more on what yesterday was like.
So as it turned out, I had only a little more time in the evenings than I would have if Michael were home. The major difference was that once I came home from doing whatever I was doing, the house was quiet -- which meant that I could work in the evening without distraction if I wanted to. (I did work several evenings, though not last night.)

Of course, managing the house while Michael was gone required some time, too. I didn't clean or anything that ambitious, but I did do the dishes every night, which Michael usually does. Grace and Emma also kept me busy: feeding them and letting them out on my own, trying to adapt to Grace's schedule, waking up (sometimes) in the middle of the night to let Grace out, and washing her favorite throw rug whenever I didn't happen to let her out on time.

Assumption #3: I'd get lots of work done.
This kind of goes along with Assumption #2, though not quite. I actually found that I didn't get much work done Monday -- still acclimating to the idea of being alone for the week, I guess -- got about the usual amount done Tuesday and Wednesday, and got absolutely nothing done yesterday (for obvious reasons). What happened yesterday would have hijacked my day regardless of whether or not Michael was in town, though, so I'd like to think that I would have gotten lots of work done otherwise.

Assumption #4: Singlehood is a good state of being for a freelancer.
Yeah, I think I still agree with this one. Being single would definitely make it easier to live the freelancer's life -- writing when and as much as you wanted, without distraction. Although, as I discovered yesterday, not having a significant other around certainly doesn't mean you won't have family responsibilities to tend to.

Of course, the nice thing about freelancing is that it's so darn adaptable -- so being single isn't a requirement (as all of you freelancers know who have significant others, spouses, and/or children). As long as you can train yourself to work around a schedule, you can do anything with your freelancing... Which is, of course, one of the reasons why I love it so much!