The good thing about working from home is that you almost never had to leave your house (at least for work-related reasons).  The bad thing about working from home is that there are times when you almost never get to leave that house.

After a few years of working from home as a self-employed writer, some of the bloom wore off that rose when I started to notice myself sensing a slump coming on.  Don’t get me wrong.  I was pleased to be able to work from home, and I’d thought I’d gotten my version of a schedule down to a comfortably flexible science (if there can be such a thing).  I actually do need to leave the house for a few work-related errands once in awhile, but for the most part everything I do is done either on my PC or over the phone.

About two years ago, though, I noticed a definite decrease in my energy level, and I was noticing that I was increasingly in a “blah” mood.  It didn’t seem like a big mystery.  It was pretty obvious to me that I wasn’t just sleep-deprived (which can happen even when  one works from home), but sun-deprived.   Having cut down on some fairly extreme walking I’d been doing for years, my first thought was that not getting out and walking was taking a toll on my mood and energy level.  I realized that I’d settled into a pretty sedentary lifestyle, so I got myself some nice fitness DVD’s, a portable DVD player, and a few pieces of exercise equipment.  At first, this all seemed perfect.  I had my portable mini-gym and could make up for some of that lost exercise time.   My little fitness program seemed effective.  The blahs seemed to fade, and I was seeing a big difference in my energy level and mood.

That lasted for awhile, but before I knew it the blahs seemed to be setting in again.  That’s when I started to point the finger at the computer-monitor lights.  “Yes,” I thought, “it’s that monitor light that’s affecting how I’m feeling.”  I’d written an article about monitor light, and in research it I’d learned that the light can affect the pineal gland (a gland at the back of the eye that produces melatonin).    Well, it turns out that if lights start throwing off a person’s pineal gland it can cause all kinds of problems, ranging from bad moods to premature aging (and nobody, especially someone of my age, wants that!).   Without getting into all the potential problems a confused pineal gland can cause, I’ll just say I vowed to stay away from the screen for “x numbers” of ours a day (or night).  That, of course, didn’t happen.  It couldn’t happen.  I work from home.  I don’t use the computer for my health, after all. 

In any case, the blahs were back.  To make things worse, I’d seriously injured my leg, which meant I couldn’t even turn to my trusty fitness videos in the hopes of feeling at least a little better.  The height of all this “low-ness” hit somewhere in the middle of Winter, and – oh, brother – I settled comfortably into a fairly major slump.  (I’d like to describe it as, “the depths of despair”, but, un-dramatic as “slump” sounds, the truth is it was a slump.)    It occurred to me that perhaps drinking wine might be something I should take up, but I’m not much of a drinker.  Trying to get even a little bit of most wines is like taking cough medicine to me.  I actually did try a couple of fairly minor eating binges, but they didn’t help.  They just made me feel fat.  The thousand or so songs on my PC no longer made me happy.   I was sick of them – every last one of them.  You know what?  I even tried smoking more than I otherwise would have!  That’s the kind of slump (or “depths”) I was in.  Yes, it was the depths of Winter, and I was in the depths of my slump.  My only hope was Spring.   I reminded myself that Spring does inevitably come around every year, so I hunkered down in all my misery (and workload) and waited for Spring.

Spring came – nothing.  Zip.  Zero.  Nada.  The slump hung around, and I was starting to imagine turning away work and using my leg injury as an excuse.  (I’m usually an honest person, but I’m not above that kind of thing if the situation calls for it.)   Day after day, I’d “spin my wheels”, going over all the things that “must be my problem”.    What work there was to do seemed like a series of tedious, torturous, tasks.  On so many beautiful, Spring, days I’d be trapped in the house at my PC; thinking, “As soon as I’m no longer walking like the late, Walter Brennan (an actor known for his limp, for anyone too young to know who he was), I’m going to find myself some work outside this house somewhere – complete with fluorescent lights, confining cubicle, lots of other people, and maybe even a frazzled, high-pressure, boss who brings to mind the words, “heart-attack waiting to happen”.  THAT is how badly I needed to get out of my house!

I was getting no sun, no fresh air, no exercise, and little chance (or excuse) to get my face unglued from the monitor.  I could feel that premature aging going on, as I tried to think of what I could do to feel better.  (Yes, I did look up the symptoms for depression; but I didn’t really have enough of them to think it was real depression.  Still – boy, oh boy – did it ever feel like had to be depression or exhaustion or burn-out (or something).

Well, I’m not a person who buys things I don’t need. I can’t be.  I may have the luxury of working from home, but that’s about it as far as luxury goes.  For the most part, I have everything.  I’ve got my very nice PC, for example.  If it weren’t for that PC and a few other items, I wouldn’t be able to do that.  Still, I was painfully aware of how long and how much this face of mine was glued to the monitor.  Thoughts of getting a nice, portable, laptop began to creep into my head, as I imagined the freedom of bringing my work outside the house somewhere (anywhere). 

A lot of people have a PC and a laptop (or two) because their work requires it.  Mine doesn’t.  It’s not like I’m in some high-pressured, on-the-road, kind of work.  My work is more of the life-sucking, tethered-to-the-desk, and at-the-mercy-of-the-phone, variety.  Come to think of it, this working-from-home thing kind of has all the bad stuff that working outside has, with none of the good stuff (like having people to talk to, getting out somewhere (anywhere), going out to lunch – that kind of stuff).

So, with my leg having reached a point where being on it more than 20 minutes wasn’t painful, I began looking for a nice, portable, mini-netbook and a nice, lightweight bag for carrying it.  Ever so careful to make sure the bag had a shoulder strap that allowed me to sling it over my shoulder and not worry about using my hands to carry it, I found the perfect bag.  To go with the mini-netbook I got a mini-mouse.  I was worried that it may be difficult to get used to using the smaller keyboard; but with the exception of a backspace key that (in my opinion) is too far away from everything else, it wasn’t that hard to get used to using it.  Since the mini I got doesn’t have a built-in CD drive, I got a nice, lightweight, flash-drive for transferring files from one machine to the other.   Something else I made sure to have was a small, insulated, bag for carrying either water or coffee.  I may have changed my ideas about what working situation would make me happiest, but I haven’t changed when it comes to my need to always have one beverage or another with me.  (By the way, my very attractive bag matches my very attractive and spill-proof coffee tumbler.  “How good can it get,” I ask you.

With the freedom to use my Blackberry as a tethered modem, I’d be able to take my show on the road without using up too much of a data plan.  Let’s see….   Where would I go to find my little corner of the outdoors to work?  What did I need – trees?  sun?  fresh air?  exercise?  Oh, just thinking of those makes me feel the way one feels when a Summer thirst is quenched by a frost-coated bottled of spring water.  Yes, I needed all those things I mentioned.   There’s a coffee shop not far (well, kind of far) away, so my plan was to start walking there each morning early.  It opens at 6:00 a.m., and there are outdoor tables.   Hmm.  I liked this portable-office plan.  I’d get up at the crack of dawn (heck – before the crack of dawn), and walk on down to the coffee shop to be there around 6.  I’d move to the grounds of the public library after a couple of hours.    My plan was to return to the house by noon, because I did have things that had to be done from there.  (Besides, there’s only so long a person can hang around even a suburban coffee shop or library without being frowned on.)  Strange as it seemed to see such appeal in “having to be somewhere” so early, I felt as if I’d taken working from home to the next level; which was, of course, “The Ultimate”.   Not a lot of people have “The Ultimate”.   It seemed as if the slump (or whatever else it should be called) had lifted.  There’s nothing like a daily dose of early morning air to make a person feel about as far from depressed as one can be.

Now, I don’t know what will happen when beautiful Summer mornings turn into crisp Fall mornings and then miserably bitter, icy, Winter mornings.  I’ll deal with that when the times comes.   I find it a little disconcerting to imagine one day getting sick of lugging my work with me at the crack of dawn.  I’ll deal with that if/when the times come, as well.

As it turns out, I haven’t been able to do my early morning walks every weekday, as planned.  We’ve had a string of horrendously hot, humid, days that haven’t included even a few cooler, early morning, hours.  Still, on those days when the heat and humidity have permitted it, I’ve put that bottle of spring water in the freezer (to make it nice and frosty before dropping it in the little insulated bag), slung my portable office over my shoulder, and headed out in the early morning air; leaving behind a silent PC, dark monitor, and cat who seems to wonder where I go these days.  Yes – for now, I have “The Ultimate”.