If you’ve read Susi’s previous post about how having a new puppy affects your ability to run a home-based business, you know that not only is it difficult, it’s a huge challenge.  Now that the puppy is nearing 5 months old, things have gotten a bit better.  She can be convinced to take a nap while we both get some work done, at least for a little while.

OK… on to Volume 2…

On January 4^th, Susi underwent some fairly major surgery (no details necessary) that resulted in her being required to stay in bed (or on the couch), take pain killers, antibiotics, can’t lift anything over 10 lbs for six weeks, and such.  So here we were, puppy wanting to jump on mom, dad trying to corral the dogs, take care of mom, keep the house in order… AND try to work.

As you can imagine, this effort was destined to be a mission impossible.  There was not a moment available to spend time on the business to try to get a bit of work done.  Every time I thought there was an opportunity, and was just sitting down to work, I heard the dogs wrestling and had to don my striped shirt and be a referee to the free-for-all.  Thinking I was smarter than the dogs, I put up the baby gates to keep them separated, which only accomplished having a constant and nerve-stomping “whine” emitting from each of them because they wanted to play.  Dohhhhhhh.

Blissful Naptime for All

The days went by (very slowly), the business limped along on auto-pilot and we resolved ourselves to the fact that the next couple of weeks would be “down time” and we’d have to catch up after Susi was strong enough for us to be a solid tag-team again.

So here we are 3 weeks later, both sitting at our desks, dogs under feet (sleeping peacefully at last) and finally getting something done again.  We have a meeting scheduled for this morning to strategize on how to recover from the last couple of weeks as well as plan for the next quarter and upcoming year.   Things are slowly getting back to “quasi” normal again.

I can say now with conviction that having a puppy, a partner that is recovering from surgery and an overall household routine in shambles definitely upsets the “Let’s get er’ done” attitude of our home based business.  That being said, I do love the new puppy and I love my wife/partner/best friend more than ever, but I’m SOOOOO happy that things are getting back to normal a little bit at a time.  Onward and upward we go.

Thanks for listening.