  urlLink cadence90 : "I also realized that having a second baby basically meant that I had strapped a few sticks of TNT to my old career and pushed the plunger. By the time Joe will be ready for preschool, I'll have been out of the job market for five years. Basically, I'll have to start all over again. My mother always says, 'Even a broken clock tells the right time twice a day.
' The nice thing, as I see it, about this situation is this: I get a do-over. I have a nice pat story about my 'career,' but like a lot of people, what I really had is a series of jobs that I wheedled my way into, many of which did not lead logically to one another (unless the logic is to secure a paycheck in order to continue to pay rent).
I did very well at many of my jobs, because I worked very hard... I have a unique opportunity, now, to actually think about what I want to do and plan for it. What I'd like to do during this time (in my copious spare time! ) is to start a few projects. Maybe some of them will grow into something really good; there's no way to know except to try them. Some of them I've already begun. Some I haven't even thought of yet. Some are on the drawing board. I can't really imagine going back to what I used to do; or at least how I used to do it. Like Halley, I don't want to go back to the old way. It's not just dislike, either: many times I thought how I worked was going to end up killing me.
Although it was strange, and hard, to stay home at first, and not be in the adrenaline-and-caffeine fuelled thick of things anymore, I feel like for every year I stay home I'm adding two years onto my life. It might not work out, but I've got my lottery ticket. If I win I get to do something I like in a way that won't kill me. " 
