Just when things were ramping-up

Wow. That was a very quick 19+ days of vacation. While I wouldn't say I hate my JOB, I do hate the fact that I have to do the daily commutes, work the 40+ hr/week JOB, and have to rely on keeping my skills current to get a bonus, raise, or even to keep my JOB. Coming into work this morning was hard - very hard. I had a lot of expectations about my vacation beforehand, but I let the holidays and personal projects take up the majority of my time, which I guess isn't really all that bad. I had really wanted to do at least one deal before coming back to work, but even when I found time for REI, I never seemed to devote enough energy to finding any deals.

Result?

I'm basically back to square one. I did use a lot of my time gaining information about Sub2 deals and seller financing, though, so it wasn't all a waste. I really feel more knowledgeable in those areas, but I still need to set aside time to talk to a competant RE attorney to make sure my documents are in order and I do things correctly. Another 'to-do' item is to call some local title companies to get feedback on their sevices and see if they can help me in various ways.

However, nothing is going to be as much a barrier in my life as when the twins arrive sometime in the next few weeks. A lot of my time on vacation was spent caring for our almost 3-yr old daughter as my wife is almost 35 weeks now and can do almost nothing. Our daughter is a handful, and with two newborns, free time will be - as my mother used to say - as rare as hen's teeth. I am in no means going to just give in and put REI on hold indefinately, but I don't want to go the other extreme and say things will be the same as before, either. While I really like to be self-emplyed and even own my own self-sustaining business one day, I have to admit one of the perks of my company is they give their male employees two weeks of paid time off when their spouses give birth. I seriously doubt, though, that any of that time off will be used for REI, but I'll try my damnest to put forth the effort. :-)

I've started writing my goals for the new year, and one of them is to be in the position by year's end to have enough cashflow + reserves in place to at least be able to sustain my family, if the threat of losing my JOB ever becomes a reality. Early on in my REI career (okay, early last year), I had said I wanted to quit by Jan/2007. While that is still an attainable goal of mine, I thought it best to provide a addendum for at least being able to sustain myself outside of my JOB.

Now to find the time ...