New Adventure as a WAHM (Work at Home Mommy)

We’ve been so busy lately that we haven’t had time to post. I am now a WAHM (work at home mommy) and scheduling in time to work has had to be early in the morning when everyone is sleeping. I used to sleep too.

So lately I’ve been very tired. Hoping my body will get used to this 4am schedule change soon. I feel good about being able to help provide some extra income for my family though and it’s not that bad, so far.

When JEM and J were little I searched for work at home jobs with no luck to any that were not scams. I’m sure they were out there I was just not as good at searching and surfing the internet as I am today. I think I was quite naive and seem to only find the scams. I signed up for a few and had to learn my lesson the hard way. I worked in telemarketing, and home child care and thought I would never find a way to stay home and bring in income.

I gave up working altogether and focused on my children. I didn’t want them in child care centers and it just seemed stupid to work to pay the child care fees when I would rather have them with me where they belonged. Plus I never had any luck with finding a decent child care center, they never met my standards.

We moved from Texas to Indiana in 2004 to work for my mother-in-law’s vocational rehabilitation business she started and had very high expectations that this would be a great money maker to support all three of us, but we were sadly mistaken and now stuck in the sticks of a little town of Martinsville, Indiana with no job and very freaked out.

My hubby was fortunate to find a job as a technician again and we didn’t end up homeless. that was good, but not what we expected.

I sadly, though was lost and felt overwhelmed. I just didn’t know how to get around like I did in Texas. I grew up in San Antonio and didn’t have to deal with SNOW, my worst nightmare. Being in the sticks I didn’t go anywhere, until I decided to go to church again where I met my now very best friend Cathy. She showed me the ropes and how to live on almost no income, but still give the kids wonderful activities and everything they need in our little town. I love Martinsville now.

I kept the search up for a way to work at home because my hubby was still struggling to provide for us working two jobs. Now we had the obstacles of snow and 15 mins outside of town with only three daycare choices and again not wanting to send them there just to work and pay for them to be away from Mom.

Made more sense for hubby to work two jobs to my one not so good paying job. I even tried working fast food at night but found it made the day with the kids very overwhelming, being so tired from working a labor job til 2 am in the morning. It just wasn’t going to work.

I final found my work at home job. The sad part is that it was there all along since 2005 and we are now in 2008 at this point. I searched for work at home job scam and telemarketing and came across this rip off report thread about West At Home with a crazy lady complaining about the pay rate and the way she got paid. I say crazy because I knew West Corporation from working in there call center in Texas. I knew they were decent company, still a big corporation with those money hungry problems, but I never experienced any major problems when I worked for them.

I was so excited to find out they started offering work at home agent positions. A dream come true because I had so much experience and would be great for me.

I applied and got the job, did all the on the job training and tests to be certified as a work at home agent, struggled with bad internet connections from living in the sticks, to finally getting DSL and on my way to making a paycheck, to more disappointment.

I was terminated. Took a month to get hired and 4 months later fired for not living in the right county. Some how I missed the county choice when I applied. Since I had information in their system from working in their call center in Texas, all I did was update my information,answer their skills matching tests and about a month later was hired. But it took them 4 months to discover I was in Morgan county and they only do business in certain counties in Indiana. I was devastated.

I was on the search again figuring that West couldn’t be the only work at home telemarketing business out there and now I had a better idea of how to search for this stuff and found a great resource through a forum I found when working for West called Work Place Like Home.

I was now awakened to the fact it was possible. Kind of like when you get a new car and then everywhere you look someone has the same car just in many varieties, red, black, or white, when you have a blue one.

Searching was a success and I found lists of work at home jobs and forums that had a great deal of information.

I applied for another company called LiveOps that is similar to West and was hired in May of 2008 and started the certification process. I struggled with this job only because I had little MJ and didn’t have a handle on finding the right time to schedule my hours. I had to get 30 calls in 15 days in order to become an agent and complete my certification. At that time you could only log on uncommitted, meaning you just had to sit and hope for a call. If you didn’t have good stats, being new you didn’t, you could sit for 2 hours with one call. I didn’t like this and just didn’t have the drive to keep it up so I eventually got deactivated.

After the miss hap, I was back to just my Mommy job and gave up. Then the need for more income and my hubby nagging about me working, I reapplied and then reapplied using a different email address and finally rehired May 2010. Today I am a full fledged agent with good stats and on my way to bringing in a great part time income that works with my schedule.

Just have to get used to less sleep and early morning hours. It’s not so bad and there are perks like not really having to get dressed or prepared to leave the house, multitasking in between calls, and the fact I can schedule my self off when I get too tired. I’m still learning and figuring out how to make this job bring in the right income. I was worried I had forgotten how to do telemarketing and make the sales. At first, I was very rusty and timid. Now I’m doing well, stats are there, and feel good about this job.

Although, there needs to be some adjustments made. I have realized over the last week, I need to cut back on some of our outings though. I just don’t have the stamina to last all day and late into the evening.

MJ has been a handful lately. She seems to be going through another stage I guess. She’s 3 and a half and testing her boundaries and my patients.

Everyday there is at least one to like ten tantrums over the silliest things. She is so strong willed and just won’t give in. I was thinking maybe I’ve spread myself to thin and have not given equal (well she probably needs more) one on one time with mommy between the three kids. J is 16 and just very argumentative so I spend most of my time arguing with him, but he seems to love this.

JEM is 10 and my little angel who helps me with everything. She’ the one with most of the away from home activities to which I drag MJ to and where I think I’m missing some of the opportunities of mommy MJ time.

Sometimes I feel like I want to go and do everything as if JEM will miss out on something if I don’t, but she is probably alright with staying home too.

I love my crazy adventures, but I’m going to try staying home and playing instead of being out and involved in everything. Maybe this will help MJ be better behaved.

When JEM was her age I didn’t do much out of the house because J wasn’t as involved in so many activities. He was happy and preferred to hang out at home, do school, and play outside.

JEM kind of does all these crazy activities just because she thinks I want her too or maybe to keep up with her friend. Not sure what she wants because when I ask her if she wants to go she always says “sure, I guess” Sometimes she gets really exited and can tell when she really wants to do something. She likes to please where MJ does the opposite and seems like she wants to torture me.

Each child is definitely unique.

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