I love being a work at home mom. There are so many advantages. It’s not just being there for my kids, which is nice, but working at home also means sometimes I have to tell them to just let me work. It’s not all fun and games.

But I also see it as a benefit to the environment. For example, my husband has a car, which he drives to work, and we share when he is home. I don’t have a separate car. Wouldn’t mind having one, but most of the time I can get away with using his after work.

On rare occasions we have to make other arrangements, such as when the kids have doctor appointments, but this arrangement has worked well for us since early January. It’s now comfortable enough that we will probably do it indefinitely.

Of course, I use more electricity at home because I’m here, but at least some of that would be used in an office. My computer use, for example, would probably require about the same amount of energy. I don’t use a lot of lights during the day most days. I very rarely use heating or air conditioning.

The lighting vs. air conditioning can be a bit of a battle in summer. Open the blinds to light up a room, and the house heats up and air conditioning is more likely to be needed. Use old cardboard moving boxes to keep still more heat out, and lights are more likely to be needed. But I would sooner use lights with energy efficient bulbs than the air conditioner.

All in all, I feel very fortunate in my situation. Working at home takes a lot of dedication and it is not always easy. But it is most definitely for me.

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