My Personal Assistant

For years I have wanted a Personal Assistant. Someone to shadow me and keep my mind straight, help organize me, and do miscellaneous tasks for me that I don't have time for. This spring I hired one...my daughter lol!

While she doesn't shadow me or keep me organized, she does do the miscellaneous tasks that help free up time for me to get other things done. She helps me with work and personal paperwork. A huge help is that part of her duties is helping with the younger kids. I don't have to worry about her feeling like I am taking advantage of her when I ask her to keep at kid for an hour, or run the car pool, or hang out with a kid or 2 at the house while they use my ingredients to cook goodies, etc. She even made the bars that I had to take to the church one Sunday for a dinner lol! She is a better cook so it was a good deal. I was laughing today that I actually had to make myself some chocolate chip cookies today since I ate up the last goodies she made for us;)

If I hired a non-family member to do those things it just wouldn't work. She is a good worker. However, the more pregnant she gets the more I wonder how things will change once the baby is born. She has promised me, though, that Thursday will be Nana days. It is my day off of work and I will get to cuddle Bella those days. I am so excited to be a grandma!

Anyway, I am learning that having Beautiful as my Personal Assistant means that I have to actually be organized enough to tell her what to get done when she shows up for work. Often she asks me what she should be doing next and I haven't gotten myself organized;)  Last week we spent 6+ hours doing sorting and filing for personal and business receipts, etc. Then I spent the next day for 6 hours entering year end data for taxes (yuck!). I had to laugh as she was pretty disgusted with my lack of organization. She said, "you know that when you die I am just throwing all of this away, right?"  I guess I won't need any of the receipts for tax purposes after I die so it will be fine lol! We said that we would stay on top of filing monthly now to make it less arduous. I think one of my problems is that I don't have an office. Maybe once more kids move away I can free up a bedroom for an office but right now I don't have the space for that so it makes it harder to keep things sorted. When we bought this house and remodeled we did it for a family of 4 - that would have been plenty spacious lol!

The biggest change has been my purchasing and now attempting to use a new program for my private practice. It has been a nightmare for me to learn how to use - although once I actually figure out components I am thrilled with how easy it is to use. It is just that steep, REALLY steep, learning curve that I always have with electronics...sigh...  But she is helping me keep other areas organized.

I am thankful for her help and her flexibility. She is keeps forcing me to keep paperwork a priority when the issues with the kids tend to be in crisis mode and the "squeaky wheel gets the grease." We will see how things change once Bella comes, but my hope is that we will make up a new routine and it will work fine. There will be no shortage of people to "watch" Bella. My husband might actually even stick around the house more just so he can get his time with her.  Hunting...grand-daughter... Hmmm.. it will be fun to see which he chooses lol!