Today, it’s been two weeks since Mack’s “official” first day in the McGowan Images office “full time”. I’m not just over-using quotation marks because I don’t know the rules of grammar… I know the rules. The thing is, “official” and “full time” aren’t really the right words to use.

We celebrated Jan. 5, and marked it on the calendar, because it was Mack’s first day without another job to go back to. But just because he’s had another job doesn’t mean he hasn’t been working full time. Since I quit my “real” job in August 2009, we’ve both been putting in 8-10 hour days with McGowan Images most of the time. Mack just had to start his days at about 5 p.m.

And since the first of November, Mack’s been here in our office 2-3 days a week, trying to ease the transition.

Now, for the first time in our lives, neither of us has a regularly scheduled paycheck. Neither of us has a commute. We walk across our property about 25 feet to get to our office. It’s scary and exhilarating and wonderful. We’ve worked so hard for this, and we’re so excited we can hardly stand it.

People keep saying, “You’re going to work together full time?!?!?!” like it’s a terrible decision. People say we’ll kill each other, that we can’t spend that much time together and have our marriage survive.

To them, I say… we’ve been doing it! Building this business has taken TIME, above everything else, and that means we’ve spent 8 hours a day working together on it, even when we had other jobs. It means 14 hour wedding days. It means feeling like we’re attached at the hip. And you know what? We kind of love it.

We’re honest enough with each other to be able to say when we need space. When he starts annoying me, I can say, “You’re breathing too loud, I need to go outside with the baby for a while.” And he’s cool with that. When I’m annoying him, he can say, “You’re humming off-key, I need to go mow the lawn or something.” And I’m cool with that.

Since we’re only two weeks in, I can’t act like some sort of expert on working with your spouse. We still have kinks to work out, and like anything else, this will grow and change over time. But for these last two weeks, I’ve been taking notes on the things I LOVE about our new arrangement, and whenever it gets hard, I think I’ll just focus on these.

• It’s wonderful to have a constant lunch date.
• I love that someone reminds me to take my allergy medicine in the morning.
• It feels less silly to work all day in your pjs when someone’s working next to you, in THEIR pjs.
• When the baby is being needy, we can take turns.
• I don’t have to wait until 5 p.m. to make decisions anymore. When something comes up, we can talk about it RIGHT THEN.
• When I come across a picture I’m super excited about, there’s someone to show. Dorothy doesn’t yet get really excited about a perfectly nailed exposure. J
• I’m getting to listen to new music, because we take turns playing DJ, and Mack always has new stuff to share.
• He makes me more efficient. I won’t waste time on gossip blogs if I could get caught doing it.
• Hugs, whenever I want them. I’m a big fan of hugs.

I’m sure the list will grow. That’s how we work. Life might not be perfect… we may not have it all figured out… but the list of reasons why it’s awesome just keeps getting longer!

Ooooh yeah… afternoon naps should also have been listed as a huge plus. 🙂