You may have noticed all those not-so-subtle references A has made to what a rough month it has been and how I have been away lots. That is because I have just started a new job. I am now a rural mail carrier substitute. I will deliver mail on Saturdays, and on days when the regular carrier is sick or on vacation. I am working out of a post office up north of us, so I don’t deliver to anyone I know. And the gravel roads are a little easier to drive on in that county, so that’s nice. I’ve been away lots because the USPS is real big on training. It’s nice starting a job where they clearly want you to succeed and to enjoy your job and to stick around for many years to come. But, it’s also nice to be back home and only working Saturdays.

My goal has always been to work as little as possible. Unfortunately, we are not independently wealthy. We make some money selling cards and notebooks through our Etsy shop. And we love working together, from home, making art work. But when push came to shove we had to admit that the shop alone was not covering our costs. So, I will now be working one day a week in addition to continuing to grow the shop.

I am thrilled to have a steady paycheck again. One of the struggles of relying on the Etsy shop for our income is that how much work you put in and how much money you get out are not directly related. There is certainly a correlation, but not nearly such a clear one as when I deliver mail for nine hours and I get paid my hourly wage times nine.

Also, I love mail. I love getting it, I love sending it, I am fascinated by everything a rural carrier can do and how mail moves throughout the system. I am not quite so excited about sitting on my parking brake between the two front seats of the car so I can drive with my left foot/hand and still reach to deliver mail out the right window. But I do get a kick out of working for the country’s second biggest employer and the fact that I had to take the same oath the president takes because I’m a federal employee.

Now, the other part of our lives that has made this last month rough was the slow, painful, end-of-life experience of our beloved Honda Civic, especially when I was supposed to be driving it to work and to deliver mail. I’ll cover that next time.